God our Refuge

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Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born, from age to age you are God. – Psalm 90

I have been thinking about God as “our refuge” lately. More particularly, I have been thinking about our human need for refuge, and how “needing refuge” would make us “refugees” by definition.

What is it like to be a refugee?

The first image that comes to mind is that of women and children trudging along a hot dusty road with meager possessions tucked under their arms or strapped to their backs. They are usually not going anywhere good, but simply fleeing from that which is intolerably bad: war, famine, disease, and death.

Having that image in mind, I don’t feel much like a refugee. I’m not facing hunger; I’m not facing anything worse than minor age-related aches and pains (and an occasional sniffle); there are no gangs of armed thugs roaming through the neighborhood seeking whom to pillage, plunder, and violate; so why should I seek refuge? Why should I look to God for help? Life’s good!

The Bible tells us that we humans have a problem. Looking, we do not see; and listening, we do not hear.

In our local communities, we are often unaware of needs surrounding us; oblivious to the predicaments friends and family may be facing; ignorant of just how desperate many may truly be.

I am not referring to the state of the economy (although that is none too good); I am not referencing the state of our political processes (although they do cause one rightly to pause); nor am I reflecting on climate change, a crumbling infrastructure, or environmental matters too vast to explore in this modest place and space.

No, I am thinking about how God sees us, and just how weary God must be at times. Consider the prayer of Moses, “You sweep people away like dreams that disappear … we wither beneath your anger; we are overwhelmed by your fury … You spread out our sins … and you see them all …”

In this day and age of self-help books by the ton, this age of Zig Ziglar styled “we can do anything we put our minds to” mentality, for what do we need God? Why should we care?

We say that God is love – and so God is – and yet how do we repay that love?

We use and abuse creation, sneering at those who ask us to conserve for future generations; we use and abuse one another, spreading lies about those we hate, and ignoring those for whom caring would cost or inconvenience us; and we use and abuse our very own selves, hoarding trinkets and treasures and anything else that may keep us from looking in the mirror to see who we truly are, or what we’ve really made of our lives.

We say that God is light – and so God is – and yet what do we do in the face of God’s light?

We skitter toward the shadows and hide in our closets. Why?

For the same reason Adam and Eve hid themselves – shame. We don’t want God to know how far we’ve fallen or how low we’ve gone; we don’t want him to realize that we’ve not loved God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; nor our neighbor as ourselves (as if God could be fooled by the fig leaves we wear).

So we are refugees. We flee from our enemies (war, famine, pestilence, and death); we flee from our thoughts and ideas, and from things done and left undone; we flee, most of all, from God.

Does God seek to destroy us? Do we deserve to be in the ark with Noah more than to be treading water with his neighbors? I don’t know. Ego says I belong with Noah, but shame would have me flee from the wrath to come.

So what shall we do? Perhaps God has not built a wall, an electric fence posted “This will kill you,” but a gate through which we may enter by the grace of God’s love – refugees all in this, God’s world.

Coming into this world with nothing, we stand before God with nothing; from age to age, God’s our refuge, and that’s enough.