Good morning. I want to thank you all for your prayers and support. I am doing well, and have been resting, following doctor’s orders. I’m going to keep this brief as i only have one functional hand to type with.Over the years here I have assembled a group of people to help make decisions and to manage the administrative tasks of our congregation. On Tuesday the advisory group and I will meet to make plans for the rest of the year.In my reading this week I came across an article by Evan D. Garner, in the Christian Century magazine. He reflects on the psalm for today, 71:1-6

1 In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;
let me never be ashamed.
2 In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe;
you are my crag and my stronghold.
4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.
5 For you are my hope, O Lord God,
my confidence since I was young.
6 I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;
from my mother’s womb you have been my strength;
my praise shall be always of you.

He writes:

I like to go for walks and day hikes, losing touch with people and electronics for a few hours out in the woods. But I don’t hike far enough or long enough to have ever needed to scramble for shelter. I remember an informational hike with a naturalist who encouraged us, if ever stranded, to look for the rootball of an overturned tree as a possible place to take refuge. The hollowed out hole in the ground, the overhanging mass of roots and dirt, and the surrounding leaves can provide some shelter from the elements. Of course, one dreams of finding a cave or even a large crack in a rock face to crawl into during a bad storm or overnight. I think that’s what the psalmist had in mind when he imagined God as the crag and stronghold in which the psalmist has taken refuge.

I don’t often think of hiding in God. Maybe that’s because I take my house, my car, and my overcoat for granted—sources of shelter that are always close by. Or maybe it’s because I take God for granted—the never-failing one whose presence is true but unseen. But the psalmist knew what it meant to take cover in God, to hide from the enemies, to wall up from threats, to be defended by the Almighty. Still, I wonder what that looked like.

So often the protection that God offers is as transparent as the wind and as open as the night sky. God sends us out into the world as vulnerable as the prophets—as sheep in the midst of wolves. The crag in which we take refuge is rarely a crack in the rock, a turret in the castle, a shelter underground. As the psalmist prays, our shelter is God.

We take refuge in God not by walling ourselves off from the threats around us but by encountering them clothed with power from on high. Sometimes, in the face of violence or abuse, we do run and hide, and we pray that God would keep us hidden. Often, though, we look around and find no where to take cover except in God. And still God is our refuge and strength, our crag and our stronghold.

I’d love to hear from those of you who read this post about the times you have found refuge in God. Share a few words, or a paragraph, or a page. Let’s use this forum to uplift each other.

May God hold you in the palm of God’s hand!