refuge = Jesus?

it’s mentioned about 16 times in the bible…it gives us the warm and fuzzys…and christians can’t get enough of saying it. it’s the phrase “Jesus is our refuge”…and why wouldn’t we love it? for many of us, it’s the way we live life by being a “good” person…trying to do what’s right…then running to God when things go wrong. but, being a father myself, i have to believe that this isn’t the way God wants us to act…you know, if my kids only came to me when things were bad and ignored me the rest of the time…well, i’d be ticked! which brings me to psalm 91.

while studying this psalm a couple of weeks ago at the living room…we dug into the meaning behind verse 7:

A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

after the first read…the meaning seems rather straight forward. “it” seems to refer to evil…satan…demons…and “fall” seems to refer to being overcome with evil. so the point is: God will protect his followers from evil even though others are being overcome with evil all around them…but…are we missing a deeper meaning?

hmmm…sooooo, why did the writer mention the RIGHT hand as opposed to just saying the OTHER hand? could it imply that one thousand may fall at your left side while ten thousand will fall at your right? and what’s the significance of the right hand, anyway?

well…in ancient times (and even some cultures today) the right hand was considered to be the clean hand…the one used for eating…shaking a friend’s hand…wrapping around your girlfriend’s shoulder while watching titanic…you know, the good stuff! and the left hand was for…uhmmm…dirty stuff…like using the restroom before toilet paper was invented.

well, this imagery of right=good and left=bad is used consistently throughout the ancient biblical writings with one of the highlights happening after Jesus came back to life…ascended to heaven…and was seated at God’s right hand.

so back to verse 7: a thousand being overcome by satan through “bad things” (or left side) seems to make a lot of sense…doesn’t it? after all, isn’t that what satan does…bad things??? but what about ten thousand being overcome by satan through good things? is it possible that this is what “ten thousand at your right hand” means? is it possible that satan uses so-called “good things” to overcome us ten times as often as bad things?…which brings me to this question, “does evil overcome through adversity or prosperity?” (clarke’s commentary)

for me, it’s natural to seek out Jesus for refuge during bad times…in fact, it is in these bad times that i and many of the people around me seem to be closest to Jesus. but it’s during the good times that I fail him. you see, it seems to be a part of our selfish way where as long as things are going good for us…we don’t seem to need God…and when things go bad…we come crawling back to our refuge.

about 9 months ago…i was meeting with some christians and i asked the question: “what is a reasonable frequency that we (Jesus lovers) should reach out into the community to provide help?” the discussion that followed clearly characterized the state of most north american christians today. while we all agreed that helping on a continual basis (several times each month) was a good idea…the consensus was that (since we are all so very busy!) helping once every 3 months was a better starting point because we really didn’t believe we would actually do more than that. and to make it worse…we weren’t even able to meet that basic goal!

after this experience…i knew something had to change in my life….i knew that Jesus had to be my refuge in both the good and bad times. so i sought out people who were truly helping people in need in our local community and i started asking questions. the main thing i learned was that Jesus didn’t seem to have “master plans” or “recipes” or “7 step programs”…instead, he just did what needed to be done at the exact time that it was needed. and the perplexing thing is how simple this concept is to put in place and yet how hard we make it on ourselves to actually do it.

but why is it so hard? why do we spend so much time talking about the poor in our community and then spend so little time actually helping? well…i am convinced that it has something to do with a deep level of selfishness which we continually uphold to preserve our comfortable lifestyle…yet, most of us don’t even realize what we’re missing.

so…i believe that I am beginning to understand verse 7 and there’s no wonder that Jesus told us how hard it would be for a rich man to enter heaven . satan loves to see us living in the good times as long as it keeps us away from God. in fact, it’s during these good times that satan doesn’t even bother tempting us because we have already fallen and he doesn’t need to waste his time on us. after all…why tempt us? that might cause us to seek refuge and then satan would lose us in the end. but, if satan just lets us march forward in prosperity…he has us just where he wants us…which is exactly where we shouldn’t be!

-kwin

~ by kwinabram on April 9, 2007.