Don’t Go from One Crazy Place to Another

 

The psalmist wrote in Psalm 91:1-2(NLT), “1 Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 This I declare about the LORD:

He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.” This is truly a beautiful and comforting passage of scripture. The shelter of the Most High is the place God occupies, and although we know heaven to be His dwelling place, He is everywhere present. There is no place that His children can go that He is not with them, but Psalm 91:1 suggest to us that there is a choice we must make. We can either dwell in the shelter of the Most High or not. And if we do live in His shelter by our faith in Him, we will find all the comforts that we need because He is our Guardian and Protector. He alone is our place of safety.

Considering the times in which we now live, we must remember this truth with every step we take. Whether it is going to the grocery store or taking a long trip, we must be vigilant to pray to remain under God’s covering. As my great grandmother would say, “the devil is busy” and we can see the truth of this all over the world. It cannot be lost on us that one of the instruments of the adversary’s darkness is bombardment and distraction. Societies are overrunning with temptations of every kind, and as believers, our curiosity is often piqued by the new trends or eye-catching things the enemy has used to steal the world’s attention. Even in the split second it takes to look at what the devil is doing, we have in effect looked away from God. The danger in this is that we risk missing what He has for us.

Faith requires focus. Our minds must be renewed, but as our attention spans are shortened by multitudes of five second glances of foolery and misinformation, we are losing the ability to remain focused. The effect of this is that we become as fragmented in thought and deed as the stuff we let in. We lose the ability to string cohesive and wise thoughts together, because we’re training ourselves to go from thing to thing. This interferes with the practice of doing as God commands in Ephesians 4:23. There, He tells us to let the Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes. In order to let the Spirit do what only the Spirit can do, our cooperation is absolutely necessary. We must partner with him with the spiritual discipline of studying God’s Word and applying ourselves to the practices that build our faith in Him.   

Our attainment of God’s Wisdom will always come from concentrated effort of study, comprehension, and understanding His Word. We cannot abandon this if we want to remain in God’s shelter through faith. Our minds and hearts are the key to abiding in the shelter of the Almighty, but if we continue transferring ourselves from one crazy place to another, this will prevent us from receiving the spiritual nourishment of God’s truth.

1Peter 1:7(NLT) says, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” In life, our faith will be tested. As we look around, we can see very clearly that darkness has many ways to tempt us and its motive is to squeeze out the light of Christ from our minds and hearts. We must not allow that to happen. The more we are pressed, the tighter our hold should be to God and His Word. If we remain true to the pattern of Christ, to try and do what pleases God, He will help us, and He promises to keep us safe as we trust Him with our whole hearts.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Don’t Go from One Crazy Place to Another”, written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.