Therefore let all the faithful pray to you

    while you may be found;

surely the rising of the mighty waters

    will not reach them.

7 You are my hiding place;

    you will protect me from trouble

    and surround me with songs of deliverance…

…Many are the woes of the wicked,

    but the Lord’s unfailing love

    surrounds the one who trusts in him.

I read about an elderly gentleman who was living in a care home. One day, some visitors insensitively asked him, ‘What’s it like to live in an old folks home?’ Pulling himself to his full height, the man replied with great dignity, ‘I don’t live in an old folks home; I live in God.’

How’s that for perspective?

The second blessing I want to highlight here is that of a personal relationship with God. (This, of course, links with the previous blessing of prayer. To say we believe in God, but not pray to Him, is a form of ‘practical atheism’).

It’s been pointed out that, as believers, we are not necessarily immune from the “rising waters” (6), but even when they come we are surrounded by a love that never fails (10).

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39)

We need to grasp that we live not so much in these set of circumstances (whether good or bad), but in God. Our lives are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col.3:3). So if something is going to touch us, it has to come through Him, and if He allows it to touch us, He must have a purpose in it.

“Hide yourself in God, so when a man wants to find you he will have to go there first.” Shannon L. Alder