Have you ever felt an earthquake? I did this past week. I was blessed to be at a pastors’ conference in Puerto Rico. I felt the earth shake—four times! Thankfully, there was no damage where I was. But it was eerie. Unsettling. To wake up in the dark and have everything moving. Suitcases rolled across the floor. Water swished in water bottles. Just a few seconds of the earth shaking is enough to make you feel completely helpless. Completely out of control.
But it doesn’t take an earthquake to make you feel that way. As proud and self-confident as we like to be, moments in life powerfully remind us that we’re not in control. We can’t do everything. Often, we can’t do anything. We’re completely helpless. Completely out of control. Felt that way lately?
Good. It’s good for us to feel that way, because then God can remind us whom to trust in: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:1-3).
Even when the earth isn’t shaking, your life doesn’t depend on the strength of the ground or the strength of your legs or the smarts of your mind. It depends on our Refuge and Strength—our Almighty God and Savior. When the earth shakes, God reminds us, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). What a promise! Even when the earth shakes, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
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