He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1
We love to praise God when things are going well. We have a good day. We fall in love. A precious baby is born. We get the raise. The weather is our kind of perfect. We finally get the dream car or house. These things send us deep into a satisfied and excited state of gratitude. This is only human. It makes perfect sense to our natural mind. During the good times it is easier to praise God and give Him thanks in abysmal appreciation for all that is well in our souls and our lives.
The greater challenge, however, is to worship God when we are in the midst of things that do not appear to be going well. When we experience great disappointment, suffering or profound loss, praising God can be both the greatest and the hardest thing that we could ever choose to do. We get laid off or fired. We get betrayed by someone we care deeply for. We lose a loved one. We face unexpected and frightening sickness. The stability of our lives appears to explode right before our very eyes. It is at times like this that our praise for God takes on a new meaning. Our praise and worship becomes a war cry, a declaration of our intent to stay in God’s shadow and fight relentlessly for our faith in both God and His love for us. We choose to pursue God and His presence even in the midst of our disappointment, instead of abandoning our relationship with Him. We purpose in our hearts to hold tightly to Him and His promises rather than clinging to or grasping for the idols, other people or things that we could mistakenly or foolishly attempt to replace Him with.
We can trust in our faith in God, when we cling to Him in even the most difficult of times. We recognize and acknowledge that our God is faithful and good no matter what the circumstances in our lives may be.
What a beautiful blessing it is to know that God calls us to and wants us to dwell in His shadow. It is providence. It is preordained. There is no safer or better place that any of us could ever be! This allows us to rest assured that in the end we are fortunate if we choose to hold onto God in the midst of even our most devastating experiences in this life. For if we are close to Him, then we are in His shadow, that is His very presence. And we know that if we are close enough to Him to be in His shadow, we are abiding in Him and He is abiding in us (John 15:4-11). If we are close enough to Him to be in His shadow, we are also in a place of refuge from the storms of life and we are in a shelter that provides us comfort from the heat of this life (Isaiah 25:4).
You may scoff and say to yourself, “I already know that God lives in me in the form of His Holy Spirit. So, I have no other choice but to abide in Him.” You would be correct in that as believers God’s Spirit lives in us, but God has given us free will. Each day as we face the challenges of this world or even what our call from God requires of us, we could choose to run away from what God has called us to. Let us make up our minds to continue in Christ. Let us dig in our heels and declare, “I feel like going on. I will continue in God’s will and in His way for me. No matter what I face, for you Jesus, I will stay with you! In whatever you have called me to Lord, I will stay!”