Chapter 10

Joy in a Place of Safety and Shelter

There is safety in the Father’s arms.
There’s healing for the broken heart.
There’s light for those who have lost their way.

It is a human characteristic to desire a place of safety. We absorb this desire for safety from our infancy. As infants, we snuggle into our mother’s breast and we find shelter and sustenance. Ever after, we are most at peace in human company, when we can fold ourselves into a loved one – parent, child, brother, sister, lover – and find solace in our distress.

Finding solace is not the same as finding joy. But joy follows after solace, as the dawn follows after the rest of night.

Joy, you will remember from where we started, is not necessarily about being happy. Joy sometimes has to live in the middle of sadness. It has to find its home in the house of pain or sorrow or loss. Happiness cannot live there. But joy can, because joy is not at its centre, an emotion. Joy is a state of mind, a place of being, deep in the soul.

Joy exists when a man who has lost his entire family to an Atlantic storm can write,

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

The Psalms are full of references to God as the source of our peace and comfort. “He has delivered my soul in peace”. (55:18) The Psalmist often uses metaphors to help us understand God as our Place of Shelter.

A metaphor, for those who have forgotten their high school poetry, is a phrase or description which describes something or someone is something in a way that they are not in a literal sense, but which carries layers of meaning to help us understand what the author is wanting to mean.

For example, when we say that someone is a “bright spark”, we know that we don’t mean that he is on fire, or charged with electricity. We mean that he carries the quality of a sudden spark – he has “flashes” of light and understanding in regard to solving problems. If we say that someone is an angel, we don’t mean that she is inhuman. We mean that she shows qualities of grace and kindness that are not commonly found in ordinary mortals.

Here are just some of the common metaphors for God which relate to finding joy in God as our place of safety and shelter.

God is our Refuge:

In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge, let me never be put to shame.
Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness; turn your ear to me and save me.
Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go;
give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress. Psalm 71: 1 – 3.

This passage introduces two other metaphors, also: God is my rock and my fortress. We will see those again in a moment, but the one I want us to concentrate on is that of God as our refuge. A refuge is where you go when you are fleeing from something frightening.

A refugee is a person who is fleeing a country where the political situation has placed their life in danger. Economic refugees are those whose native country is so poor, or whose status in that country is so low, that they cannot find sufficient resources to survive.

Thinking of God as our refuge invites us to think about a God who provides for us that place of warmth and sustenance that is more feminine than masculine. He becomes our mother’s breast for us.

One of the names of God is El Shaddai: the God who is sufficient for the needs of his people. “El Shaddai” has its roots in the Hebrew language, meaning “breast”. This name reminds us of God’s maleness and femaleness. Another word much like Shaddai, and from which many believe it derived, is shad meaning “breast” in Hebrew (some scholars believe that the name is derived from an Akkadian word Šadu, meaning “mountain,” suggesting strength and power). The word “El” means “God”. Shaddai is the plural: breasted. God is seen as one who nourishes, satisfies, and supplies His people with all their needs as a mother would her child. You and I may lean onto him, and nurse our strength back again.

God is a Rock:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge. Psalm 18: 2

You will again have seen two other metaphors here, but God as our rock is the one we want to focus on. A rock is a firm place. When engineers want to build a tall skyscraper, they first of all have to excavate and perhaps drive long piles down into the earth until they find solid rock. Only once they have found solid rock can they build a firm foundation for the building.

Jesus told a well known story about a man who built his house on sand, and another man who built his house on a rock. When the storms came, the house on sand was washed away, while the one on the rock stayed firm and stable.

It is inevitable that our lives will face storms. Jesus never promises that if we come to him, life will be easy. On the contrary, he often tells us that if we truly try to follow him, we are more likely to attract trouble and trials.

If you want an easy life, then avoid Jesus at all costs. Chris Gleeson quotes Dennis Potter, the British playwright who was dying of cancer and was asked about his faith. His reply was: “Religion to me has always been the wound, not the bandage”. (Gleeson, p. 122-3)

In such circumstances, we need to have our house founded on rock, if we are going to survive life, let alone know joy in the survival.

God is our Fortress:

We have already seen God as our fortress in the previous two passages, but here it is again:

My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. Psalm 62: 1 – 2.

When your enemies are advancing upon you, you need a fortress to which to retreat. A fortress is a strong place, often a high place; a place that is strengthened and secured against attack. Everyone knows about the safety of Fort Knox, the US gold store.

Refer to the High King in hymn, Be Thou My Vision……..

Again, the idea of being in a fortress implies the presence of a battle, of enemies. All of these metaphors have been enabling us to find a place of joy in the midst of strife and terror.

God is our Shield:

Here is another battlefield metaphor.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. Psalm 28: 7.

I think by now we have grasped the idea of God being our help in times of trouble. It is not often that God is described in metaphors of aggressive tones. Although I am not saying you would never find such a metaphor, generally, God is not our Arrow, our Spear or Sword or our War Chariot.

The closest we might come to this is when the Bible is described as being the sword of the spirit. Familiarity with the Word of God enables us to take the offensive, and to use the very words of God as our weapons. But that is very different from God being seen as our weapon.

God is an Anchor:

The setting for this metaphor shifts to the sea.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. Hebrews 6: 19.

The Old Testament does not have much seagoing imagery, as its people were by and large living at some distance from large bodies of water. In contrast to this, our English heritage is full of references to sea and ships. This arises from the fact that Britain, as an island nation, has always been a seafaring nation. Our language is full of imagery and expressions relating to the sea and to ships.

We “steer our course”, we “know the ropes”, we “founder on the rocks”, we “can’t fathom” something, we “keep ourselves afloat” and so on. The language is rich in such expressions.

When we encounter a lucky chance, we say that it is a fluke. A fluke is one of the sharp parts of an anchor. Ship anchors generally have two or three pointed, curved metal prongs. Each one is called a fluke. It is a “lucky fluke” when one of those prongs catches on a rock in an emergency and holds the ship safe.

There is a lovely old hymn that comes from one of the seaports of England, and celebrates the faith that the fishing-village people placed in God who was their anchor:

Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain,
Will your anchor drift or firm remain?
Chorus
We have an anchor that keeps the soul
Steadfast and sure while the billows roll;
Fastened to the Rock that cannot move,
Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.

This hymn was sung by wives and villagers over the centuries as the fishing boats left the safety of the harbour and went out to sea. It became the psalm, the sacred holding pattern for those who remained on shore, looking for peace and certainty and hope.

God as our Protector and Shelter:

There are many other metaphors that we will find for God through the Scriptures that relate to our finding him as a shelter. He is described as our hiding place, our firm foundation, our well of living water.

Surely the most well-loved Psalm is Psalm 23: The Lord is my Shepherd... From this one Psalm (and other references) we have developed a whole culture of pastoral images, of being led by the Heavenly shepherd.

Ministers are often called Pastors. The word comes from the Latin, meaning shepherd. We talk about spiritual leaders being shepherds of souls. Bishops in some traditions carry a staff in the form of a shepherd’s crook. We expect that schools will have programs of pastoral care for their students.

Very often we want God to take the brunt of the forces that would otherwise come upon us. We use a shield to deflect blows, we hide behind a rock or in a fortress so that the strength of those structures will take the blows that were otherwise meant for us.

In a similar way, we use language to show that we desire God to be our substitutionary sufferer. And God is pleased to take on this role. Indeed, this is the entire story of the Bible, and of the Gospel. Where we are unable to withstand the blows and attacks of the world system upon us, (even if we thoroughly deserve those blows) we run to him, asking him to be our substitute.

One of the greatest stories ever told is also one of the hardest to understand, and so one of the least discussed. It is the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his son Isaac. Especially in our modern peace-oriented way of thinking, where Old Testament symbols of blood and sacrifice are hard for us to comprehend, this story strikes us as one that is altogether too strange and harsh.

How could Abraham even contemplate killing his own son on an altar for God? How could he sharpen his knife, and tie Isaac’s hands and feet so as to make a thorough job of the awful killing? How could God even ask such a thing? How could I want to worship a God who did ask such horrors of a man? Is there a chance that he would do so again, even perhaps from me?

It is because of questions such as these, that most modern Christians do not often talk about this story or think about it. We are happy enough to talk about Abraham’s faith, and of God’s deliverance, but most of us will gloss over the early details of the story as being one that we would really rather not think about.

And yet we would have to concede that it is one of the most important stories in the whole Bible. It was this that caused Abraham to be known as the Father of Faith. The sacrifice took place as far as we can tell on the very mountain, perhaps the very rocks where Jesus would be crucified thousands of years later.

No amount of 21st century sensitivities can take away the fact that it is a pivotal story in the Bible. Understanding it helps us to understand this topic of running to God as our shelter and our rock, our hiding place.

The essence of the story is Abraham’s faith. The story is clear that Abraham fully believed that Isaac would not be lost to him. He told his other companions to “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Together they went off to the terrible hill. The heart of the human father was struggling with the certain knowledge of what he had to do, but at the same time in his heart, he cherished a Hope that could not be understood but was nevertheless firmly held. (Isn’t this a definition of faith?)

When the boy asked him where the lamb for the sacrifice was, Abraham replied, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”.

Abraham’s faith was that God would himself provide the deflection, the shield that would divert the fatal blow. Yahweh would somehow be the shelter that they would both run into at the moment of death. It is hard to imagine that if it had all failed, that Abraham would have come back on his own, and tell his family and his wife, “I have killed my son. I thought God wanted me to. Our only son, Isaac, for whom we waited all those years, is no more. I killed him.” He was staking everything – hear that again, everything – on his faith that God would provide his substitutionary sacrifice.

Imagine the sheer inexpressible joy that bubbled up in Abraham’s heart as he heard the angel’s voice, “Do not lay a hand on the boy”. And when we say, “God is my refuge, God is my rock, my shield”, we are saying that we are trusting God in faith that he will take the blow that was meant for us. And we know he will, because he has declared himself to be our protector, our saviour, our “in-place-of-me” sufferer.

In this is great joy. In this certainty lies the secret of joy for the Christian in the midst of suffering. Yes, of course I may be hurting. Of course I may be asking a thousand anguished questions in my mind. Of course I may have a terrible fear deep in my gut that this may not work. Did not Abraham have all of these, too, in that three day walk from Beersheba to Mt Moriah?

For Abraham, his son Isaac was already dead in his heart as he left. He walked those three days with a dead boy in his mind. Who can say what fear and turmoil there were in his heart. But by the third day – resurrection day – Abraham knew that the Lord was with him. He had the witness in his heart that God would not forsake him. God himself would provide the lamb. If God himself had to be that lamb, because there was no other solution, then God would do even that. When he sharpened his knife and tied the cords on his son, there was the depth of joy deep down in his heart. He knew with an absolute certainty that it would be all right. All would be well; all would be well; all manner of things would be well.

The Pathway to Joy:

It is interesting that in many of the passages we looked at above, these metaphors of God, there is a close linkage in following verses with joy and song. Read them again in their context and you will find a rapid transition from fear to joy. Remember the song of Moses and Miriam in the desert after pharaoh’s forces have been drowned? They sang:

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.

Joy follows the fear and the drama, as night follows day when God is in the camp.

Do you ever feel as though you are being pursued? As though your whole life is spent running away from things that you cannot control?

There is a psalm which describes exactly this feeling. Psalm 42 describes a young deer that is being pursued by a hunter or perhaps a lion. It runs furiously looking for sanctuary. It dare not stop for a drink. Its young breast heaves with the exertion and the fear. It is desperate to survive.

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

The writer becomes the panic-filled young deer, and recalls the times when life was not so frantic. He recalls when he used to be happy; when he had a good life, with friends and family; when his church life was happy and he could enjoy worshipping with his friends before it all went wrong:

My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”

These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

In his depth of fear and anxiety, he cries out to God. He desperately seeks his refuge, his place of shelter, his hiding place. And in this fear, he becomes aware that a subtle transformation is taking place, deep within his soul. He can’t really understand it, but his fear is being replaced with love and singing. He is still lost, but he starts to know joy:

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

All of us know this sense of running away. What we need to know also, is that God is willing to replace our mad and suicidal fear with his love. His love soothes and calms us. His love finds for us a hiding place, so that we need no longer fear. And when we are in that place, our fear is gradually replaced by joy.

God as our Dwelling Place:

One of the most beautiful metaphors for knowing the peace of God is found in Psalm 27. This Psalm expresses the desire of all of our hearts. It is as deeply elemental as humanity itself.

One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.

For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.

Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the LORD.

God provides for us his dwelling place. In fact, to be more precise, he provides for us himself, and he becomes our dwelling place. It is not that he merely gives us a place of safety. He hides us in himself, and he is our place of safety, he is our hiding place ¹. Oh, how this makes us sing with joy.

Are you feeling that your life is in need of some shelter? Do you long to hide from the onslaughts of life? then take joy in this:

God is your refuge;
God is your rock;
God is your hiding-place;
God is your shelter;
God is your shield;

God is all of these things to you, because he loves you. He has willingly placed himself in the place of suffering for you. Do not accept the burden of your suffering alone. He offers to share it with you. But his idea of sharing is to take it from you. And to give you instead, his joy and his peace. This is a light and airy burden that he will give you in exchange for your heavy load of panic and fear and sleeplessness.

Family JoyFinder

Discuss as a family some metaphors that might describe God. start by using a sentence like, “To me, God is a...”

Younger children may like to do some drawing or artwork which shows God as some metaphor.

Try praying to God as a family, like this, taking it in turns to speak:
“Thank you God for being my... (lifeboat, rock etc)”

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1 There is a chapter at the end of this book which deals with this theme again. I have made it a separate chapter because it relies heavily on Old English poetry which will not be everyone’s taste. If you enjoy the rhythm and mystery of poetry, read that chapter.