My Shelter
by Scott Hamilton on Tuesday, 30th October 2012
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 91:1-2
One of the great marketing achievements that I have witnessed is the marketing for gazebos in Scotland. How they managed to find a way to convince people to buy a structure with a roof and no walls in a land of horizontal rain is beyond me. Yet all too often we select spiritual gazebos as the place where we seek shelter in our lives. Psalm 91 offers us something different.
What an awesome thing that God would provide us a dwelling place. Let’s be clear; it is to be a dwelling place and not a dabbling place. Much of the difficulty, danger, and damage we face in our Christian life is caused by dabbling with the things of God rather than being intentional about dwelling in the shelter He offers us in His grace.
When God offers us shelter, He is not saying “make yourself at home” as if we are guests who will come and then go. He is saying that what you find in Him, through Jesus, you are home. So the question we need to ask is, “Why would we ever choose to be somewhere different?”
We manage to market the things that replace God. We run to these temporary things instead of a permanent God because we see them as offering more than their vulnerable and temporary reality. We simply don’t see that moving away from Him will make us weak and more vulnerable to attack. The Psalmist makes some deliberate decisions. Notice how often He uses the words, ”I,” and “my.”
So there are two things we can do to help us in this.
“I will” – We must coax ourselves toward Christ. Whether we call it, “Forget not all His benefits,” or “Preach the Gospel to ourselves,” it must be intentional every day. When we remind ourselves of God and his faithfulness, grace, patience, and love to us through the cross, it strengthens our faith.
“My” - We get to count ourselves in Christ. God has made it possible, through His great Son, for us to be counted in Christ. He has made it personal with us and for us. It is time for to realize that in a fresh way .
So today it is time to stop dabbling and start dwelling.