Psalm 11: Refuge

David begins Psalm 11 in the same place he’s been in for the last few Psalms, in a position of weakness, but trying to put his trust in God’s strength. He begins with a declaration, “In the LORD I take refuge”. Refuge is a place of safety, it’s a place to be hidden, protected, surrounded and kept. We don’t need refuge unless we find ourselves under attack, in danger or beyond our own strength. David’s declaration was not only about God’s character, but his own condition. He was saying, “I can’t do this and so I’m going to trust God”. The question that arises and must be considered is, what does trust look like? When we find ourselves overwhelmed and we declare our need and intention to “let go and let God”, are we as invested in letting go as we are in letting God? Even more, are we trusting God to do what He knows is right or are we trusting that God will do what we want or expect? Refuge is a place where weakness leads us to surrender. When we take refuge, we are confessing that we need to be held onto because we can’t hold on any longer. 

It must have been incredibly difficult for David to have to leave Jerusalem when he was betrayed by his son Absalom. There was the inherent pain of being turned on by his son, the hurt of having the people he had led and served turn on him when someone else came along, but, to me, the hardest part must have been that this was simply not at all what he had expected. David had been anointed the king of Israel when Saul had disobeyed and been rejected by God. He had endured years of difficulty at Saul’s hands. He had been exiled from the kingdom and then, when Saul was killed, the country divided. Rather than rallying together under David, they separated over him. I’m sure that wasn’t what he expected. I talk about this often, but I believe it’s one of the most important difficulties we face, and I believe we face it often: what do we do when God’s will doesn’t follow our expectations?

How often do expectations get met? If God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55), then how often does the will of God meet our expectations? Now, you’ll hear some people say that God’s will is always better and in the eternal view of things that’s true, but I’m not sure we will understand better until we enter eternity. This means that often we are left with the reality that what God is doing is different than what I expected Him to do. If we look through Scripture, whose expectations got met? Abraham didn’t expect to wait 25 years before he and Sarah had the son that would become a nation. Moses didn’t expect to wander with Israel for 40 years before they went into the Promised Land. David didn’t expect to fight with the Philistines before he got to lead Israel. The apostles didn’t expect Jesus to defeat our enemies on a cross or sit down on a throne in heaven before He came and established His kingdom on earth. In each of those cases, refuge was needed. Expectations were too small, God’s plans were too big, someone had to surrender and just in case you haven’t learned this by now, that someone is always us. 

“Surrender” carries a negative connotation. We think of surrender as defeat. We wave the white flag because we can’t fight any longer, we’ve been overpowered or out maneuvered. The problem with surrender is that we are putting our lives in the hands of someone else, we are losing control, having our power taken from us. That’s scary, unless the person you are surrendering to loves you. That’s what makes all this different from our expectations. We surrender to God not because He’s powerful, but because He loves us. We put our lives in His hands not because we can’t or He can, but because He a good for us that is beyond or ability or our understanding. Peter fought to keep Jesus from dying, not knowing that if Peter had his way there would be no salvation. The Christians pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem, not understanding that without his arrest we might be missing much of the New Testament. What if the only way to receive more than we’ve asked or imagined is to give up what we’ve been asking for and imagining? 

That’s what refuge does. It’s not a hiding place, it’s a dwelling place. Refuge is not where we are defeated it’s where we receive a portion of Jesus’ victory. It’s not where we go to recover, get instruction and then move on from, it’s a place to put our lives in God’s hand and learn to believe that His goodness is trustworthy. We all have hopes, dreams, desires and expectations, those are not negative things, but they are all things that can keep us from God if we don’t put them in God’s hands. David knew he was the King of Israel, he knew that was God’s promise and God’s will, but he also knew that it was not going the way he had expected. He had a decision to make, to fight for what made sense to him, to plead with God until God did what he wanted him to do, to complain, grieve and lament what was going against him, or to find his refuge in God, to put his hope, his kingdom, his future in God’s hands. 

We need to decide, like David, to believe that God’s promises are being fulfilled even when they all feel like they are being broken. If you are like me today, you are waiting for some stuff to break your way, what if that stuff is actually in the way? Are we willing to make God our refuge, to put ourselves in His hands and to trust that surrender to His love might not meet our expectations, but it will meet our needs, it will heal our wounds and it will accomplish God’s purpose. Refuge is not a place for the defeated, it’s a home for the victorious, it’s not where the weak live, it’s where God’s strength is perfected, it’s not our last resort, it’s God’s perfect will. God’s not waiting for us to be defeated by our enemies, He’s asking us to surrender to His love. He may not do what you want, but when the time has come, you will want what He did.