Psalm 31 opens with robust words of strength: refuge, rescue, rock of refuge, fortress. These words are the words David used to articulate not only what he is pleading for from God but also to affirm what he knows to be good and right about God.
David longs to feel safe, and he understands God as a place of safety.
Safety is important to me. My team can attest to the fact that I consistently watch to be sure that our campus is free of choking hazards and of anything that could compromise safety. Ask Meg Williams about the 500, adorable, hand painted Christmas ornaments we scrapped one year—now affectionately known as the choking Mary’s. On an airplane, I always know where the exit is that is closest to me, and whenever traveling on a ferry—I calculate in my head that there are indeed the number of life jackets needed to ensure everyone has access to one. Here at Peachtree, I know where the safest rooms in the church are. In the case of an emergency, I would be able to guide each of you to a place of refuge.
Psalm 31 reminds me that where I am the safest is actually not in a place. It is in a person. The Psalmist says with clarity that God is our refuge. As a young Christian, I may have taken this to mean that nothing unsafe would become me if I claimed this promise from God. Even now, I wish I could guarantee safety from storms or sickness or on those long drives home from college that so many tired students take.
However, I am unable to guarantee physical safety. Not only am I unable to guarantee it, it’s import that I acknowledge God tells me that I will have trouble in this word, but to take heart because he has overcome the world. True safety rests in the comfort of the promise of our eternal safety, the safety that is established in the finished work of Christ. My comfort is established in the fact that he, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus made a way to dwell with him—both now on earth and later with him forever in heaven. God is our refuge, rescue, rock of refuge, and our fortress. In Christ our safety is secured.