[The Mayor]

March 10, 2004

The Hiding Place

Read: Psalm 34:4-8

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! —Psalm 34:8

Bible In One Year: Deuteronomy 11-13; Mark 12:1-27

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In this world's misery there is only one sure refuge: God Himself. "He is a shield to all who trust in Him" (Psalm 18:30).

To "trust in" comes from a Hebrew word that means "to take refuge in" or "to hide in" or "to hide with." It suggests a secret place of concealment, a "hidey hole," as we used to say in Texas.

When we're exhausted by our efforts, when we're bewildered by our problems, when we're wounded by our friends, when we're surrounded by our foes, we can hide ourselves in God. There is no safety in this world. If we were to find safety here, we would never know the joy of God's love and protection. We would miss the happiness for which we were made.

The only safe place is God Himself. When storm clouds gather and calamities loom, we must run into His presence in prayer and remain there (Psalm 57:1).

George MacDonald said, "That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, 'Thou art my refuge.'"

How safe and blessed we are! —David Roper

O the sweet unfailing refuge
Of the everlasting arms;
In their loving clasp enfolded,
Nothing worries or alarms. —Hennessay

Safety is not found in the absence of danger but in the presence of God.

[ST.LOUIE1]

Safety is not found in the absence of danger but in the presence of God.

Amen.

Good morning, Mayor.

[dutchess]

Safety is not found in the absence of danger but in the presence of God.

Thanks Rus.

[Dubya]

Learn To Write In The Sand

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. At a specific point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one, who got slapped, was hurt, but without anything to say, he wrote in the sand:
"TODAY, MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE".

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who got slapped and hurt started drowning, and the other friend saved him. When he recovered from the fright, he wrote on a stone:
"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE".

The friend who saved and slapped his best friend,asked him, "Why, after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone?"

The other friend, smiling, replied: "When a friend hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness get in charge of erasing it away, and when something great happens, we should engrave it in the stone of the memory of the heart, where no wind can erase it"