You are my hiding place;
You protect me from trouble
You surround me with joyful shouts of deliverance
Psalm 32:7
In the last devotional we looked at the metaphor of the shelter; a true physical place representing an even truer spiritual place. Today we will take a step further considering shelters.
5 Realities of Shelters
The best shelters are both strong and familiar.
Shelters are temporary, for a moment - a designate ‘season’ of time
Shelters are meant to refresh and restore for the journey.
Shelters can be made of physical things such as sticks or stones and shelters can be made of wisdom, love, and nurture.
Our purpose in life if outside the shelter.
It is this kind of shelter in which we can find restoration when time is spent with God. He is our true Refuge and Strength. David uses no less than nice descriptors of God as his Shelter in the first two verses of Psalm 18. Read it here:
Psalm 18: 1-2
I love You, Lord, my strength. The LORD is my rock, My fortress, and my deliverer,
My God, my mountain where I seek refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
In the very next breath recorded in the third verse of Psalm 18 David makes this beautiful praise wrapped in an experience of great need:
I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies. Vs. 3
What Shelters Are Not
The truth is not every shelter is the kind that produces deliverance and strength. We must be discerning and careful.
Though shelters can be made of wisdom, love and nurture, counterfeit shelters can be built off of our feelings, our wounded hearts, a habit with which we have become comfortable and refuse to yield to the grace of God.
We have a real tendency to quickly build shelters from the words we speak and thoughts we have which don’t align with the will of God. Like the religious leaders in the days Christ walked the earth we have the tendency to slowly construct ways of doing things which could be opposite to God’s kingdom. It is the cry of our flesh to seek our own way, apart from the Lord. The greatest gift God gives us is liberty, and we find that in surrender to Christ. Our flesh, will groan and grumble looking for the easy way, avoiding any censor. We’d rather skip along the wide and open path than trod the narrow path.
Remember –
Shelters were not meant to become long-term dwelling places. Refresh and move out!
Counterfeit shelters are a real danger; a true trap. Pray for and exercise personal, biblical discernment.
Counterfeit shelters can be built off of feelings, traditions, or preferences. Your words reveal your building materials.
Counterfeit shelters always postpone and can arrest the working of the Spirit of freedom in our lives.
Live freely in Christ Jesus.