God is our Refuge Part 2
God as our refuge Part 2: Hiding Place
In Part 1 of this series on God as our Refuge, we discussed how God tells us often in His word to take refuge in Him. I also discussed why we need a refuge in this life: We need a refuge from the wrath of God for our sin, and we need a refuge from the troubles of life. God uses different word pictures to portray God as a refuge.
In this installment of this series, I am going to focus on the picture of God as a hiding place in trouble. These are the main Bible passages to support this idea:
Psalm 32:7 “You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance.”
Psalm 91:1-2 “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust!’”
Psalm 63:7 “For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.”
Psalm 31:19-20 “How great is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You, which you have wrought for those who take refuge in you before the sons of men! You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.”
What is a hiding place? Children love to play hide and seek. They hide somewhere and wait for the seeker to find them. What makes a good hiding place? It is unexpected, hard to find, and unseen. In real life danger, soldiers or people in war-torn regions or violent situations want to go to a place where no one can find them, or if they do find them, cannot access them. Throughout David’s years of fleeing from Saul’s relentless pursuit of him, he found caves to be a good hiding place. They are definitely unseen! In I Samuel 24, Saul stops at a cave to relieve himself while he is pursuing David. But David and his men are hiding in the recesses of the cave. Saul never knew that they were there. David cut off a corner of Saul’s robe without Saul realizing it. In I Kings 19, Elijah flees for his life from the wrath of Queen Jezebel after he kills the 400 prophets of Baal. He hides in a cave.
In ancient times, castles/fortresses were relatively safe hiding places. In modern times, with planes and drones able to see us from above, along with the use of bombs, a reinforced underground bunker is a much better place to hide. In Israel during the recent war, there have been frequent sirens calling the residents to take refuge in neighborhood bunkers, or in fortified safe rooms which are in most homes.
In Greenbrier, West Viriginia, a classified underground bunker was built in 1960 to shelter Congressional officials in the case of a nuclear scare from Russia during the Cold War. It had generators, thick blast proof 25 ton steel doors, a cafeteria, infirmary, dorms, and rooms for doing Congressional business. It was never used, but stands as a testament to man’s ever present need for a hiding place from enemies.
When we say that God is our hiding place, what do we mean? We cannot literally see him or literally hide behind Him. However, God gives us help, encouragement, and safety by who He is. When we hide in the shadow of God and under His wings (as the verses above reference), we are depending on God for safety, comfort, refuge and hope. AI tells me that birds use wings to protect their babies from predators, to give them warmth and to keep them dry. Hiding beneath the wings of our Sovereign God shields us from all the troubles that come at us in life. He bears those troubles for us while He hides us, if we let Him do this.
In this series, I am going to discuss many ways to practically apply the idea of finding refuge in God, but in this blog post, I am going to focus on 1. We find a hiding place in God’s good, loving, and faithful Sovereignty.
Finding a hiding place in God’s sovereignty. What is God’s sovereignty? The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary defines it this way, “A term by which is expressed the supreme rulership of God. This is rightly held to be not an attribute of God, but a prerogative based upon the perfections of the divine being.” And how do we know about what God is like and how His sovereignty is used? The Bible. The Bible tells us that God uses all the actions of all men at all times to work towards His plan, whether they are trying to work against Him or for Him. Nothing will thwart His plan. I think His providential workings are more of a miracle than when He stops the ordinary course of nature and does a miracle in the traditional sense!
Romans 8:28 tells us “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” We see throughout the Bible how this has been done throughout Israel’s history and early church history. We hear through the testimony of many saints throughout church history that God’s sovereignty was their confidence, and they gave testimony to God working the circumstances of their lives for good, even if they were painful. Sometimes they didn’t understand what God was doing during their lives, but we often have the privilege to know from history how God used certain events or saints’ martyrdom after their death to bring about great good.
Joseph is one of the great examples in Scripture of how God used great trials in His life for great good. He was sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. He spent years in prison due to false accusations. By God’s working through giving Joseph the interpretation of certain people’s dreams, he ends up being the second in command in Egypt. He was put there in order to save Egypt and the surrounding people, including God’s chosen people Israel, from starvation during a famine after many years of plenty. At the end of his life, he tells his brothers in Genesis 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”
The most incredible example of God’s sovereignty was the death of Jesus. The Jews and the Romans thought they were getting rid of a man who upset them with His teaching and miracles, and threatened all their plans. They thought their actions were going to accomplish their ungodly plans of getting rid of this nuisance. But instead God was using what they meant for evil in order to accomplish salvation for the whole world, and to fulfill the hundreds of prophecies about the coming Messiah. Acts 2:22-23 “Men, of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know-this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”
We know enough through Scripture and the testimony of the saints throughout history to have strong confidence that in all situations God is working for good. We have 1,000's of year of history that testify to God's good sovereignty. We know from Scripture that He loves us, and is faithful to His promises. And He calls us to hide in Him and find refuge. So we can trust in His sovereignty though trials press us hard. Charles Spurgeon said “When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.” He also said, “There is no attribute of God more comforting to His children than the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe troubles, they believe that Sovereignty hath ordained their afflictions, that Sovereignty overrules them, and the Sovereignty will sanctify them all.”
Psalm 32:7 has been a favorite verse of mine for many years. I love the idea that God surrounds us with songs of deliverance while we hide in Him. The Christian faith is a singing faith. We love to put our theology to music to help remind us of God’s greatness, and to help us rejoice in Him even through tough times. I have found such comfort in songs based upon the truths of Scripture. I will be sharing a lot of those songs in this series. I want you to embrace this resource too. I also encourage you to read through the whole book of songs that God gave us in the Psalms. I read one every day to lift my heart to remember God as He is, and to remember that He is greater than my trials and able to do great things. I can trust Him no matter what. Here is one old hymn as God as our hiding place: Hiding in Thee
Corrie ten Boom and her family in the Netherlands were devoted Christians. During World War 2 when Jews were being carted off to concentration camps or death camps by the Nazis, the Ten Booms decided to try to help Jews hide and then escape to a safe place. They had a fellow believer help them design a hiding place in their home and watch shop to shelter Jews. There was a steady stream of Jews who came in and out of their home during this time. They lived as regular guests in the Ten Boom home, but participated in daily drills to practice getting into the hiding place in only a couple minutes, and leaving no trace of their presence behind on their way into the hiding place. No dishes, no clothes, no belongings, etc. were to be left behind. The Ten Booms would rearrange their table to be set for only 3 instead of the true number of people in the home. There were hidden alarm buttons that the Ten Booms could press that would signal to the household to rush to the hiding place because the Nazis were coming into the house. Unfortunately, too many people knew they were hiding Jews. On February 28, 1944, there was a Nazi raid of the home and Corrie, her sister Betsie and her father were taken to jail. After some time in jail, Betsie and Corrie were taken to the Ravensbruck concentration camp.
And so began a terrible time of suffering for her. But, just as she and her family had provided a hiding place for Jews, God provided a hiding place in Him and His word for her and her sister. He allowed them to smuggle in a Bible. Even though she was helpless in a human sense, she had the great God of the universe at her side. Corrie says, “For I too had a hiding place when things were bad. Jesus was this place, the Rock cleft for me.” When things got too hard for her, she would pray, “Will you carry this too, Lord Jesus?”
The Bible they smuggled in not only became a source of refuge and a hiding place for Corrie and Betsie, but also for every woman in their barracks. She explains in her biography The Hiding Place, “As for us, from morning until lights out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword?... Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us’….More than conquerors… it was not a wish. It was a fact. We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute-poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not ‘we shall be’. We are! Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.”
She went on to say, “I’ve experienced His presence in the deepest darkest hell that men can create… I have tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.”
Corrie was referring to Romans 8:31-39 where it says that nothing can separate us from the love of God. There are many other Scriptures that help us find a hiding place in God. J.I Packer in his book Knowing God refers to Psalm 56:11 which says, “In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Packer says, “Whatever ‘flesh’-or ‘man’, as it is put in verse 11-may do to the psalmist from the outside, so to speak, in the deepest sense they cannot touch him, for his real life is the inward life of fellowship with a loving God, and the God who loves him will preserve that life whatever happens.”
If Corrie can find a blessed hiding place in God in a Nazi concentration camp and be victorious, what is our excuse? Let’s focus on God’s word and His character minute by minute just as she and Betsy did, and as the psalmist calls us to do. Run to take shelter under the shadow of God’s wings. Let’s renew our minds each hour with the hope and truth found in the Bible. Then we can know the blessedness of God as our hiding place.
Here is another old song about God as a hiding place: He Hideth My Soul | Songs and Everlasting Joy
In the next installment of this series, I am going to discuss God as our fortress and talk about Martin Luther.
Here is a newer song about God as our hiding place: Christ Will Be My Hideaway • Lyric Video
Verses to memorize in response to this blog: Psalm 32:7 and Psalm 91:1-2.
Email me with comments or questions at Candice_anastasi@hotmail.com