August 30, 2024
Everyone decides where they are going to live. Circumstances often affect that, but in the end, your dwelling place is your choice. Even if others force you to live in one place, there is another place where you can dwell. And this choice makes all the difference.
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)
CHOOSING HIS PRESENCE
The Psalmist speaks of the man or woman who chooses to walk into the Lord’s presence for their dwelling place. These wise people “say to the Lord” that He is their fortress and consciously trust in God. Living there is a deliberate choice, whatever else is swirling around them.
For you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place. (Psalm 90:9)
“You have made” indicates a deliberate direction brought on by a deliberate choice. We must move from dwelling somewhere else to living under God’s roof, near Him. And when we do, we position ourselves under the shadow of the Almighty. “Draw near to Me,” God says, “And I will draw near to you” (James 4:8)
All of us have read the overwhelming stories of those who have found God’s dwelling place, even in the midst of horrible surroundings. Corrie Ten Boom and her sister, Betsey, were prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp. Betsey once told her sister, “There is no pit so deep, but God is deeper still.” She had made the Lord her dwelling place and found all she needed in the shadow of His wings. No one could remove her from that holy home.
UNDER
Being under a roof when it’s raining is a wise step. Choosing to position yourself in God’s presence is the singular place where you were created to abide. “Abide in ME,” Jesus said (repeating it 11 times in 10 verses in John 15). The word means to come close and remain. To stay put there, not running away to take matters into your own hands.
My brother once left a vibrant, growing church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to take his family to war-torn Zimbabwe to serve as a missionary. When people questioned him about the safety of his children, he would say, “My children are safer in the center of the will of God in Zimbabwe than walking on the streets of Tulsa.”
Read Psalm 90 and see God's protection, care, and faithfulness to all those who make Him their dwelling place. There is no safer, more secure place to be and no place of greater satisfaction when we are enveloped in His omnipotent arms of perfect love.
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