Under Cover

I recently taught a message I needed to hear more than any of the people I was ministering it to. It's title was "Take Cover" and was based on Psalm 91:1-2 which says:
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust."'

Over the past few years, my health has not been what it had been growing up. I hadn't been back at the hospital since my birth. And the only thing that took me to the doctors office had been frostbite in my teens. But every since starting my journey in early adulthood, I've had some challenges regarding my health. I had recently gone for a check up and my world had been shaken up by the doctor's report, before I remembered this text. As I  watched things fall out of place as my earth quaked, as my eyes started to blur, as I started to loose my balance at the ground that shook beneath me, a small distant voice called out: "take cover".

Over these few years, I had come in and gone out and come in and gone out of God's shelter. One day completely trusting God to make me whole, the next studying the different (and upcoming) stages of the condition. I would walk in, stay for a day, a week at most, then walk right back out of the shelter. I visited, I didn't live there, I didn't dwell there as God intended for His children. The security that this verse speaks of is for those that will permanently reside in God's shelter.

A shelter is something that offers you protection, cover, against harsh weather conditions. It doesn't promise that the storms and winds  of life will never strike, it doesn't promise that the sun will never scorch, but it does guarantee protection when those conditions come. Just like the pillar of cloud that walked with Israel during the day and turned into a pillar of fire by night, always a relevant cover to their needs of protection.
This shelter not only offers you protection, but rest too. This means I am not anxiously waiting under the shelter, pacing up and down, waiting for the storm to still. Like Jesus in the boat, I sleep, I rest, I am at peace, a peace that transcends my understanding because the pain of it is still there yet I am not moved.

There's something my eyes were opened to in verse two while I stood that I hadn't seen during my study, the fact that verse two is a confession, the proclamation of those who've taken cover. You don't take cover and just meditate on it, you need to say certain things. You say things to yourself and to your storm about your God. And be careful to get that right, you are not saying anything about yourself and your frailties, nothing about the storm and it's intensity, only things about God and his power to keep you safe.

A refuge is security from danger, but the trick with a refuge is that, in most cases, you are to blame for the danger that you're running from. Like a Moses who had murdered a man and ran for refuge in another city. And this totally blows me away because it shows a different God from the one we've been preached about, who'll only protect you when you've done right. I still qualify for God's protection, his security, even when I'm to blame for the danger that's approaching me. What a merciful God we serve!

Let me not preach it, but I hope you get it. I hope you get it that you don't have to go through it alone, that as our ground shakes and as the clouds gather, we have a shelter in our God. We can take cover from the increasing unemployment rate, we can find rest from our raging bodies, we can find protection and provision from the increasing costs of living. Like Ruth who understood what Boaz meant to her and claimed cover when poverty was seeking to swift their lives away, we can claim cover from our Kinsman-redeemer.