How To Respond When Idiots Rule The World

Occasionally we just need something poured into us. Life can often feel like a high powered-vacuum cleaner that is sucking everything out of you down to the very last grain of competency that you have within. It seems that many of us find ourselves lacking time, lacking energy, lacking money or lacking motivation. I have personally spent moredays in seasons like that than I care to admit, so I know that there is occasionally great need for us to be on the receiving end of something which aids our souls. Today, I was reminded of this little nugget of help from Psalm 5:

“Let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread Your protection over them, that those who love Your name may exult in You. 12 For You bless the righteous, O LORD; You cover him with favor as with a shield.”  – Psalm 5:11-12

God likes to be known as The Refuge.  It pleases Him when His children flee to Him for safety. The strong and self-sufficient never get to experience this from Him because they rarely sense their need. For those who know what it means to be tapped-out for a season, the name Refuge means much. We can hide in Him from what frightens us. We can run to Him for solace.  We can fall into His arms when we have taken a beating. The psalmist declares that those who make a practice of trusting in God, The Refuge, will eventually find themselves rejoicing and singing.  What a beautiful swap – fear exchanged for singing in joy! Yes, there is something about running to God with nothing to offer and nothing to prove that brings about a strong response from His ever-compassionate heart. Eventually, His presence eclipses whatever it was that we sought refuge from. Intimacy replaces intimidation, and we find ourselves at home in The Refuge.

The psalmist then adds another layer of emphasis.  He describes God as a blanket of protection over us and a covering shield surrounding us.  It might not have occurred to you today, child of God, just how safe you are in Jesus. Is not the world today like a wild, rabid, roaring animal? I am unsure if I have ever been more aware of a greater level of measurable chaos in my lifetime. The convergence of several major global instabilities is pointing us toward a scenario that will likely become an explosion of upheaval.  Washington D.C. is the laughingstock of all Western nations. Islamic terrorism continues to scar whatever territory does not resist it. North Korea is governed by a demonized maniac who makes sport of torturing his citizens, and then killing them en masse. Perhaps the most unstable world leader, this man has nuclear weapons, with which he is actively facilitating plans to strike the mainland United States. Even more troubling is that North Korea has two associations with nations that are not exactly friendly towards America. China and Russia are not punks on the playground. Though they do not want global war, they are closer in geography and philosophy with North Korea than they are with us. It all sounds so immeasurably dangerous to me.

Yet, as children of the King, we have taken our refuge in Him. He has spread His protection over us. The Father has covered His children with His favor which acts as a shield to us.  It is all right there in Psalm 5:11-12.  We aren’t reading a Hallmark Card. We are reading a promise from the God who cannot lie.

So, I will not fret today. I will not tremble in the shadow of evil men. I will not allow the outer chaos in the world become inner turmoil to my soul.  Happily, I will let Washington D.C. figure itself out while I refrain from the strife and division being facilitated from that source. I will flee to The Refuge and make my home in Him. I will pray and then I will trust the One to whom I pray. As a matter of fact, I will worship, intentionally taking myself to a place well above the fray. Singing is on my calendar today because I am going to live forever in a Jesus-ruled paradise. Crazy megalomaniacs on planet earth have been around since the beginning.  Not one of them has ever posed a threat to my Father.  I am His – and I hope that you are too.  If you are, then join me in being the fulfillment of what the psalmist wrote to His God:

“Let all who take refuge in You rejoice…”

Happy Monday, saints.