When facing difficult moments or challenges, the best place to park is in God as our refuge and strength

By Dean Collins

My frequent readers know that I often write about going through hard times. I suppose one answer as to why I write about these themes is that I have and do often go through difficult times myself. I think that many of us who are at least in their 40s and read their history books or paid attention to current events realize that we live in a time of great uncertainty. 

Some might say that things aren’t any worse than in other generations, we just have more information available to us instantly. That might be true. But I believe that social media content and technology has made possible the rapid spread of significant misinformation, which adds to our dilemma and makes finding the truth a bit more difficult.

Technology continues to quickly change industries at such a pace that once-solid businesses or industries can become obsolete and cease to exist. It is hard to name a field of study that isn’t in great flux. All of this can bring significant stress to those of us who lead churches, colleges, nonprofits, hospitals, schools, and cities. So, I write about hard times because for the last two decades, I have been charged with leading in hard times.

As a Christian who is also a leader these are hard times because fewer and fewer people are trusting in their churches and in God to discover help and hope. Church attendance has been in a decline for several years. Current culture tends to question whether historic Christian theology is particularly relevant when it comes to many topics. Those of us who are followers of Christ have a tougher job than we used to have, I believe. 

As I read Psalm 31 today, I began to think about the difference between living in hard times and leading through hard times. I think maybe there is a difference.

I may receive a diagnosis, lose a job, go through a significant family challenge. All of us deal with something of great difficulty. And when we do, we spend our energy and apply our faith to living in these moments. Will I heal? Can I get another job? Will my son or daughter return? At some level we have permission to stop other things to focus on this extreme situation.

But if you are the pastor, the CEO, the civic leader, you carry the burden of how to deal with your challenges while also being responsible for the organizations you lead. If you are a person of faith, you also carry the burden of not only teaching about these tough topics, you also have some sense of responsibility for modeling or demonstrating that you actually believe these things you teach.

When we consider the many psalms of David, we find a person who dealt with many great difficulties and at the same time bore the responsibility of leading. So, what David said and how he wrote about going through tough times is relevant for us.

Psalm 31 opens with a statement we have read many times in the psalms, the prophets, and in other wisdom literature: “In you, O Lord, do I take refuge.” That is a pretty good opening line in prayer for all of us when confronting a difficult moment or an ongoing challenge. We will have a tendency to run to many places for help and relief, but the best place to park is in God as our refuge and strength.

As David continued, we read other familiar phrases from scripture. Some are declarations of who God is and others are cries for help:

Deliver me.
Listen to me
Rescue me.
Rescue me quickly.
Be a strong refuge for me.
You are my rock and my fortress.

They go on and on with wonderful truths that we can proclaim to God in our prayers and simultaneously speak truth so our ears might listen and our hearts might believe. But in this psalm, we find a sentence that will quickly lead us to the cross. Jesus prayed this line to the father from the cross: “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” And submitting to his Father’s will throughout his life and in the garden of Gethsemane, he had prayed, “Not my will but yours be done.” For Jesus, this meant he would suffer and die to fulfill God’s promises and our redemption.

When David wrote and prayed Psalm 31, he was clearly in great need of help. David surrendered his life and his situation into God’s hands and to his Spirit that even in this situation he would find deliverance. Later in this psalm David said it this way: “You are my God. My times are in your hand.” There is no better or stronger place to take our problems. We can find great release only in the hands of God. 

As we know from so many places in scripture, David reminds us again here that once we place things in God’s hands, we must wait on him to answer and to bring deliverance and relief. The very last verse of this powerful psalm says, “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!”

When we go through difficulty, we place our situation in the hands of God. Our tendency is often to grab it out of God’s hands and find another place to put it, or that we must somehow find another answer. We must resist that temptation and confess our tendency to the Lord, as we once again place our agony in the hands of God, that by his Spirit he might bring our deliverance.

Father, you never promised that following Jesus would be free of pain. In fact, you told us that in this world we would indeed have many troubles. Some days we do better than others in dealing with our troubles and trusting you to get us through our difficulties. Forgive us when we snatch out of your hands what you told us to commit to you. Today we place all our burdens and declare with the psalmist of old that we will be strong and take courage in you, even as we wait for you to bring deliverance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Your Time with God’s Word
Psalm 31:1-5, 14-16, 19-24 ESV

Photo by Miriam G on Unsplash
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