The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? — Psalm 27:1
When was the last time God floored you? For me recently, it was during a private pity party as I helplessly wondered how long this hard season with a difficult toddler will last. My prayer was simple: Lord help me! To outsiders, I suppose it looks as though I am strong. After all, we have navigated months of medical procedures, hurdles and big reactive emotions that have assaulted our little one. Somehow our family is still standing—barely. On the inside, however, I am tired and overwhelmed. It’s easy in hard seasons for me to think I have been forgotten—to feel as though God is somewhere far off and my prayers are hitting deaf ears like cold sleet on a window-pane. When I am overwhelmed I look at the problems all around me and grow more fearful. As fear grows, a sense of being underwhelmed spiritually takes root. Eyes looking down grow our problems big and our view of God small.
Psalm 27:1 reminds us that the Lord is the stronghold of our life. For God to be a stronghold means that God is our source of solid security. God is the means of safety and the very essence of refuge and protection. As a ship is more secure anchored in the middle of a harbor during high-winds, so we are held fast in the hands of God when we are tossed helplessly about in the muck of life. He is our refuge. God keeps us. He anchors and tethers us to solid ground. God kept his son as well. Just listen to God’s Word’s to His beloved servant, His son:
“Thus says the Lord: In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages.” —Isaiah 49:8
What Christ did for you and me was no small thing. I forget this because I know Christ was fully God. God can do anything. God is so big, so great, and so mighty that I overlook the fact that the task commissioned to Christ by His father was brutally hard. Walking the road to calvary and being poured out on a cross is nothing we would ever sign-up for or willingly submit to. Christ was God, but he was also human flesh, with all the weaknesses privy to humanity except that He wore it sinlessly and perfectly. Christ sweated blood and tears out of obedience to His father because of God’s great love for desolate sinners such as you and I. Even God’s precious servant, His son Jesus Christ, needed to fix His eyes on His father for strength to endure the task before Him. Christ’s words floored me this week;
“I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. BUT the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.”—Isaiah 50:6-7
Unlike Christ, in the hard seasons of life, I question God’s goodness. I wonder where God is, and accuse Him of abandoning me. Pain tempts me to look down, to shrink back into despair. In hard seasons I want to stick my head in the sand and disappear. Not Jesus. Jesus didn’t hide his face away—or any other part of himself. He endured and He overcame through obedience, because He TRUSTED His God, His father. He knew the Lord God helped him. God’s strength enabled Christ to set his face like a flint—an unmovable fixed rock—upon God Himself.
This beautiful exchange between God and his son reminded me that because of Christ I am saved. Because of Christ, and the God who kept and strengthened Him, and because God gave Him as an unbreakable covenant, my chains of sin are shattered. The Lord is my stronghold. The Lord is my strength. The Lord is security FOREVER.
So when life is overwhelming, as it often is, look up! Set your face like a flint upon Jesus, the source of our anchored and sure hope. Don’t allow life to underwhelm your view of our great and glorious God who loves us oh so very much—always and forever.
