Psalm 46:1: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
There are three things mentioned here that occur in time of trouble. God is a refuge, strength, and a help. This sounds good, but my question is, how does this refuge, strength, and help come about. Christians are going through trouble all the time and I see many who find no shelter, refuge or help.
Each word in the Hebrew will define itself. Take a look at the word refuge. How does God manifest Himself to us as a refuge? The word is chasad. It means a refuge, a dwelling place. The word is spelled with a Cheth which indicates that He becomes our refuge when we join ourselves with Him and receive a revelation from God. The next letter is a Samek which shows that this joining ourselves with God and receiving a revelation from him will come through our memories. As David said: “Forget not the past.” We look at how God brought us through in the past and this will assure us that He will not let us down today. The last letter is a Hei which represents the presence of God. So refuge is a joining of ourselves with God by thinking on the past faithfulness of God and receiving a revelation from God surrounded by His presence.
Next we have the word strength. This is ozze which has the idea of inward reflection through an involvement with God resulting in a rest. When we rest in Him we are not worried about all our troubles. This gives us the chance to renew our strength. The word osse shows a physical, financial, and relationship strength.
God is a present help. The word help means just that, to assist. However, the ever present aspect found in the word masa means to find something with a light. We sometimes find something through touch, through uncovering something or by shining a light on it. Mesa is the third, finding something by shinning a light on it. God is our help as He shines his light to reveal what his revelation is.
Finally, what type of trouble or distress is He delivering us from? The word for trouble is very interesting, it is closely related to our word ozze. That word is ezra. It literally means a pebble. A small stone or pebble that gets lodged in your shoe. It is an annoyance, but if is not dealt with, it will cause you to go lame. C.S. Lewis pointed out that the enemy knows better than to hit us with huge disasters, because that will only drive us to our knees, so he hits us with little pebbles in our shoe, annoyances that soon manifest themselves as huge problems that paralyzes us.
Thus, God is a refuge, strength, and help in those little everyday problems that just end up so overwhelming us that we shut down. How does God deal with that in us? We find a refuge in our joining with God and experiencing His presence. However, we can not experience His presence if we do not have strength or inner reflection leading to an involvement with God and rest. This then leads us into seeing the revelation of God through the masa the light of God uncovering it for us.
I first thought this was a step by step process. You are fighting the spiritual battle, God surrounds you with His presence and brings you into a shelter, and then through inner reflection you find His revelation. In the last step He shines His light on the revelation so you can understand it. Yet when you examine this passage you find that the reverse process could also be true. This does not have to be a process at all. We find this shelter, strength and help are inclusive of each other, you can’t have one without the other, each is dependent upon the other and all happens in an instant. Our refuge, strength, and help in time of trouble is ever present.
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