Finding our Refuge in God

Finding our Refuge in the Lord

It seems like there is an abundance of caves in the Holy Land. Or you might say that the Holy Land is very holey. David found out that these caves were the place where he could hind from King Saul when he became jealous of David’s success as a warrior. It was probably in the of the caves of Adullam that David wrote the beautiful words of Psalm 142. In it he says, “Look and see, there is no one at my right hand; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. I cry to you, Lord; I say, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living’.”


There in the darkness of the cave the Lord heard his plea and saved him, not by destroying Saul, but by bringing people around him. His family came and soon many others came to live with him in the caves. Before long 400 rabble rousers joined him and became his protection. God brought people who were distress, in debt and discontented to David and he became their leader—a veritable Old Testament Robin Hood.

When David needed another hiding place he found the caves of Ein Gedi to be just the place. Saul again was searching him out when unknowingly he ventured into a cave to releave himself where David and some of him men were hiding. Without Saul knowing, David found where Saul had taken off his robe and then cut the corner off it. After Saul was finished and out of the cave David went to him, bowed down before him with the corner of his robe in his hand. He told Saul how he could have killed him but did not because he was God’s anointed. Saul then had a change of heart and acknowledged that David would indeed be the king of Israel.



I would have to think that David learned many life lessons in the caves of the Judean hills. He learned that even though the caves provided protection, it was really the Lord who was his refuge. And the Lord provided him a community to care and protect him.


Where do we find our refuge? I have a suspicion that we find refuge in being able to control our circumstances and have power over any situation. But if we simply seek out of refuge in the Lord who is in control of all circumstance and has all authority over every situation, we can rest at peace no matter where we lay our heads down to rest.

The Heart of God

Often when we read the stories about the people of Israel leaving Egypt and traveling into the Promised Land, we have to swallow hard when we come to the fight scenes. We ask, “Why did God tell the Israelites to kill so many people?” It seems so cold, and not something the God of the New Testament would do. It is certainly not Jesus’ style.
But before we begin to chisel away at the reputation of the God of the Old Testament, we should take a good look at what God is doing in bringing his people from Egypt to Israel and how He does it.
Take the story of the Amalekites. God took his people out of Egypt and away from any populations that could attack them. He did not want his people to go to war. However, the Amalekites followed them on their journey down the Sinai Peninsula. There they attacked the Israelites who fell behind—those who were old, weak, or disabled. Finally, at Rephedim, God told his people to fight the Amalekites. This was in response to the terrible things they did, the killing of the old, weak and disabled. This is simply evil and God would not just sit back and do nothing while those who needed the most help were slaughtered by a people who preyed on those who lagged behind.

The Valley of Rephidim -- Amalekites defeated

I hope you see in this the heart of God – a God who desires peace, yet who will not let the weak be destroyed by evil. I wonder how closely our hearts resemble this heart of God when it comes to defending the weak and those who “lag behind.” Do we care for and stand up for the disabled, the elderly and even the unborn? Do we take on another’s burdens and share them? Do we follow the example of our Saviour, who was so desirous that God’s people not suffer that he took the evil of the world onto himself and defeated it with love and forgiveness? This now should be our modus operandi– to “overcome evil with good.”

Aliyah!

When Laura and I signed up for a trip to Egypt, Jordan and Israel we understood that we were going to have to hike and hike hard up several mountains. We knew that the biggest hike was going to be up Mt. Sinai, or technically, Mt. St. Catherine. So we began to prepare ourselves for what we knew would be a four hour climb up about 4,000 feet to the summit. Laura ran stairs and walked hard. I ran several 5Ks and a 10K before we left. We also went for long hikes together every Friday for several weeks leading up to our departure. It was a real challenge and a good deal of work getting ready for our trip. We did not want to fail at climbing Mt. Sinai.

Our trip up Mt. St. Catherine started after a long bus ride from the Red Sea. It was not until about three in the afternoon that we started up the mountain. The first hour we traveled on camel back -- interesting but not real comfortable. Then we got off and began the real hike up, and up, and up. The trail was well-marked but steep, with many switch backs zigzagging up a rocky face.






We were still an hour from the top when the sun set and the world became dark. Then, climbing with our flashlights, we arrived at the top where some Bedouins had a fire and dinner waiting for us -- tea, soup, roast quail, rice and melons. We put on a base layer, rolled out sleeping pads, and pulled heavy wool blankets over us to sleep under the stillness of the billions of stars.





What kept us going up and up was a Hebrew word that Pastor George taught us: aliyah. It is a great word which means “to go up” or “to ascend.” It is used frequently in the Old Testament to describe how people went up to meet the Lord. It is used of Moses when he climbed Mt. Sinai. The Exodus narrative tells us that Moses “went up” to the Lord at least four times. God could have easily met him at a lower elevation. He could have even come down into the valley. But he told Moses to come up to the top of Mt. Sinai. What a tremendous effort God expected of Moses to meet with Him and come to know Him.

Today we rarely expend any effort to meet with God. Instead we look for convenience and comfort in our meeting with the Lord. Simply attending church takes minimal effort. We often fit our life of devotion to God into our lives when it works for us -- driving down the road, or a quick prayer before a meal. When do we really go up, or aliyah, to meet with the Lord? It makes me wonder, do I really put any effort into my relationship with God? I am really trying to take the effort that I put into getting physically prepared to hike up Mt. Sinai into getting spiritually prepared for all the mountains the Lord will have me climb during the rest of my life.

Trust or Security

I am sure that the people of Israel were excited when they thought about getting out of slavery in Egypt. But I can only imagine they became less than enthusiastic when they learned they were going into a vast and barren desert where they would have nothing of the things they enjoyed in Egypt. They would not have meat, an abundant supply of vegetables, water melons to cool their thirst and many spices to make their dishes tasty. And I am not even mentioning the water that is so essential for life.

I never realized the stark contrast between Egypt and not-Egypt until our teacher, George DeJong, made it very clear to us by having us hike up a mountain on the edge of the flood plane of the Nile River just west of Luxor, Egypt. It is unmistakable what is Egypt and what is not-Egypt when you look over the Nile River valley. The contrast could not be greater.


One is lush and full of life. There are all kinds of plants and crops. Birds of all kinds fly up and down the river. The Nile River is a fountain of life. When the Nile flooded it brought fertile silt and water to keep the valley the center of a prosperous and thriving civilization. Outside of the flood plane there is death. In fact, this is where the Necropolises were built. Here the Egyptians buried their dead; some in pyramids and some in deeply dug tombs like in the Valley of the Kings.


So when God took his people out of Egypt, they were going from the land of the living to the land of the dead. No wonder they often wanted to go back. You ask yourself, “Why did God not bring them back?” I mean, after Pharaoh and his entire army were drowned in the Sea, there was nothing stopping them from going back and taking over the country. They could have places to live, fertile fields, and all the prosperity they could ever want. But this is not what God wanted for his people. He was taking them to a land that he cared for and one in which they would have to trust in him for their life. To be prepared for that, they had to learn to trust the Lord in the dessert for 40 years. They HAD to learn that trust in the Lord was more important than security.

I am not sure that we have gotten to this point yet. We tend to look more to security than trust in the Lord. I have often heard people tell me that when they give to the Lord they give “what they can afford.” This means that they have to make sure that they will be able to eat and pay the bills first. But the Lord wants people who trust him for everything. Maybe we need to allow the Lord to take us into the wilderness to learn to really trust in him.

A Great Preoccupation with Life

Even though Laura and I are home from our trip to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, the journey of learning, of incorporating what we have seen and experienced into lessons for our life, continues. Here is what I have been thinking about this week.

God created us for eternal life. This was his desire for us. But ever since sin brought death, people have been obsessed with getting eternal life back. The ancient Egyptians were preoccupied with death and the afterlife. They strove to please the gods in the hope that they would in turn bless them with a wonderful afterlife. This can be seen so clearly in the vastness of size and quantity of tombs and temples in Egypt; in the symbols of the ancient scriptures that remain on the walls of all the tombs and temples; and in the way that bodies were embalmed after death.

One ancient symbol is the key of life, which seems always present in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The gods were almost always depicted as having a key of life in their hands, and life was given after death in the symbolism of a god putting the key of life into the deceased person's mouth.



Another important symbol is found in every tomb. It is from the “Book of the Dead,” and is of a human heart on a scale being weighed against the weight of a feather or feathers. If the deceased persons heart was found to be heavier (or also could be translated "harder") than the feather(s), then he would be condemned and kept from eternal life; but if his heart was found to be lighter than the feather(s), he would in fact receive eternal life.



Think of this as you read the 10 instances recorded in the Bible where God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, or more fascinating yet, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Could it be that Pharaoh was willing to forfeit his own eternal life rather than to let the Israelites go?

In complete contrast to this preoccupation with death in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Old Testament does not speak of eternal life or seem that preoccupied with what happens after death. However, there are three very important “eternals” in the Old Testament: Eternal God, Eternal Covenant, and Eternal Kingdom. It as if God is screaming to his people, “I got this death thing covered, you should just be preoccupied with life and not death.” Ezekiel gives us God’s very words about this, “I will remove from you your heart of stone (heavy heart) and give you a heart of flesh.” God does not want us to be preoccupied with death, but with life!

We life in a culture where a new paganism is in vogue -- though nobody would want to call it that. However, something inherent in paganism is a preoccupation with death. And this we see all around us as evidenced in the emphasis on “dead heads,” zombies, TV programs that trivialize death and the deceased, and senseless killings. What we really need are armies of God-followers who are preoccupied with life and living well. When God takes care of the death thing, we can live the wonderful, abundant life that pleases him.

The Final Day :-(

For the last day of our journey George had us do a lot of walking retracing the steps of Jesus from the Mt. of Olives through Jerusalem to the Church of the Sepulcher. We first walked through the market place to the Old City before is was even awake. The narrow streets were bare and easy to maneuver. We went out the Damascus Gate, past Solomon's Quarry, where the large stones for the Temple were cut, and then up to the Mt. Of Olives. It was a beautiful morning and the sun glistened off the Old City.


We then walked down the road that leads to Gethsemane. It is very steep and gravity pulls you along, but as George said, it was love that pulled Jesus in this direction. We spent some quiet time along a path in the Garden reflecting on that love. We also saw olive trees that were centuries old, possibly over 1,500 years old.

We then crossed the Kidron Valley and entered the city again by the Lion's Gate. We went to St. Anne's Church, a beautiful 12th Century Catholic church. It has amazing acoustics and our group walked up to the steps and sang. Ryan, a young pastor with a beautiful voice, lead us in singing Holy, Holy, Holy; it was a powerful moment for us. We then walked next to the church to see the remains of the pool of Bethesda.

We continued our walk down the Via Dolorosa cutting through the old food and meat market ending at the Church of the Sepulcher. Here we mingled with the religious pilgrims who come here by the thousands to see where Jesus might possibly have been crucified and buried. It is actually rather dark and dreary there from all the candles people have lit and placed by the shrine of the tomb.


After a lunch in the market we packed up and began our trip to Tel Aviv. On our way out of town we stopped at the Israel Museum where we saw a model of Jerusalem as it might have looked in the first century. We then continued our trip to the coast and stopped for supper at a seaside restaurant. After dinner we walked to the Mediterranean Sea, waded in and watched the sunset.


We have seen, touched, smelled, walked on so much in the past two weeks that it will take months to process it all. All I can say now is that it has opened our eyes and hearts in such a way that we will not be the same. It has made us realize that God has always asked of His people some amazing things, and this has not stopped even today. I will try to unpack what that means more in the days ahead.

On the Eleventh Day of Adventure...

We left the hills of Judah and stopped by a Look Out or monument to the State of Israel. From here we got a very good view of the mountains of Judah and the new city of Jerusalem. But we did not stay here very long. We headed past Jerusalem and descended to the western side of the Dead Sea to visit the Qumran Community. Here was saw the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls where found. We also visited the ruins of the building called the "scriptorium" where they were written. They took great pains in getting the text absolutely correct by having one person watching each copier.



After getting a better understanding of the Essenes who lived here we headed to Masada, Herod the Great's fortress along the Dead Sea. Once at the top, we toured this huge complex and saw the hot baths, the cisterns and water collecting system, the Synogogue, and the great palace of Herod. This is truly an amazing place considering the amount of hard work by many slaves it took to construct it.

When we got down from Masada we traveled north along the Dead Sea to get to En Gedi. This is the place where when Saul was trying to kill David, David was able to cut the corner off of Saul's robe. En Gedi is a beautiful wadi with a stream running through it. We climbed up the wadi to a water falls, keeping in the shade as it was 116 degrees out. When we got to the pool under the falls one of the members of our team was baptized by her father. It was a great experience.



On our hike out of the wadi we saw a couple dozen Nubian ibex. They are on their way back from just about being extinct. They are beautiful animals! Interestingly, the Bible also calls this place The Crags of the Wild Goats!

As we travelled back up to Jerusalem we stopped in the Judean wilderness to get a view of Jericho to the north and the place where Jesus was tempted to the south. After a time of devotions and silence, we finished our trip at the Knight's Palace in the Christian Quarter of Old Jerusalem. After cleaning up and having a delightful supper we walked to the Western Wall and spent some time there.