Ever wanted to hide? I have. I loved those TV commercials that ran for a while, featuring some incredibly embarrassing situation followed by the tag line – “Need to get away?” Like the lady who looks at the belly of another lady in the supermarket and asks cheerily, “So -- when are you due?” The other woman just looks confused and sputters, “But I’m… not pregnant!” Ouch. ‘Need to get away?’
There are other times when the need to get away is not so funny. Life can be overwhelming. The children are driving you crazy, your house is a mess, important friendships are on the rocks, and you just can’t seem to get along with your spouse. Then there’s that financial situation you can’t get control of. Or maybe at work, expectations seem incredibly high for the resources at your disposal. You’re under pressure to perform, people are watching you. Maybe there’re even times you wonder if you’re sacrificing your dignity and principles for the sake of keeping your job -- and speaking of time -- there just never seems to be enough of it… ‘Need to get away?’
I know I do. That’s why verses like this one are so encouraging, especially when just ‘getting away’ becomes its own problem – when there’s no one you trust to talk to, when you don’t have the money to physically travel away from the chaos, when you’re out of vacation time or when there just aren’t any baby-sitters to relieve you for a moment of breathing room – the verse I’m talking about is Isaiah 32:2. “A man will be as a hiding place from the wind, and a cover from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
“It is not enough that I should be pointed to a far-off heaven, where there dwells an infinite loving God,” said a man named Alexander Maclaren -- “I believe that we need more than that. We need not merely ‘God is my refuge and my strength,’ but ‘a man shall be a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest’” (155 Sermons Preached in Manchester). What he’s saying is that we need someone who can both meet our every need and relate to us in the hard times -- and Jesus alone is that man. “Come to me,” He welcomes, “all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28). Life is a hurricane; go to Jesus the storm-cellar and experience calm, quiet, peace. Life is a desert; go to Jesus the freshwater spring and take a deep, cool drink. Life is a sun-burned wilderness; go to Jesus the shade tree and get refreshed, get revived. How do you “go” to Him? How do you “hide” in Jesus? Talk to Him. Pray. Tell Him what’s wrong. Ask Him to hold your burdens for you, and then to hold you too. And as you pour out your heart to Him, He will pour Himself into you.
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