Keeping Safe

“That’s amazing!”  I heard someone say as I passed by two teenage girls having a conversation.  They were animated about whatever “amazing thing” they were talking about.  We all like having something “amazing” take place in our lives.  We love that excited feeling of adrenalin pumping when the extraordinary happens and we are there firsthand to experience it.

For the Christian, when we see God perform in amazing ways; perhaps provision of something desperately needed, or the healing of a very ill family member, we are filled with immeasurable joy.  We are thrilled that what we longed for, God made happen.

Such joy is a normal response; perhaps causing us to believe that our joy will never fade again — until it does.   Why, after experiencing such happiness in God, can we so easily fall into a pit of despondency?  Some even fall away from walking in God’s ways completely.

David wrote in Psalm 18:2, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.  He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”  We can easily forget that it is God Himself who is our safety and our joy rather than the thing that He may bring about to keep us safe.   Think about this: A person may be saved from drowning by a boat that appears on the horizon, but a person is still saved whether they drown or not when they are in God.   When we learn to have our focus on God being God; the One who loves us perfectly at all times, then we come to realize that we are always safe in this world because we are always in Him and He is in us.  We are merged into the love of God and kept safe by Him through all trials in life; God giving us His own strength and peace to face anything.  Even death does not take away our safety, for in death, eternity with perfect love and peace truly begins.

When we  know that we are in Christ, we are safe at all times; not because of some amazing thing He may bring across our paths on earth, but purely because we are hidden with Christ in God.  There is no more beautiful or safer place to be.  “Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.  For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.”  Colossians 3:2-3   As we begin to absorb the truth of these words, we then understand that wherever God leads us, we are safe.