The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God my rock where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. – Psalm 18:2

Have you ever tried to give a cat a bath? It’s not easy. In fact, it’s a job I wouldn’t advise to anyone. Cats do not like water of any kind falling on them. So, what happened when my crazy Callie escaped in the rain?

Picture this … while it began to rain recently, Callie made another bid at freedom. For some reason, she always escapes when my husband opens the door. Frankly, I think she’s a little more respectful of me because I can sound mean sometimes. (Yikes!) Of course, she didn’t know it was raining; she only saw that open door.

Running straight out the door, she felt the drops of rain. Instead of running back into the house to get out of the rain, she ran in circles on the deck. (You have to admit you’ve got this picture in your head.) And, yet again, my husband is standing there with the door wide open to coax her back inside. Instead of heading for home, she ran under the vehicle.

Why would she do that? Why would she pick something that is movable as a refuge when she has a home? …. The real question is, why do we not seek our own refuge in God in our time of rain? In our time of trouble?

We travel through many valleys, hills and rough roads in our life. No one goes through life unscathed. It is those trying and terrible times that truly make or break us. To where do we run in those times? Do we seek out our own refuge out in the world? If you’ve been out in the world, you know it’s like Callie running under a vehicle. At some point, that vehicle will be moved, and the refuge is gone. Any comfort or refuge we build with our own hands will ultimately fail. But there is One who will never leave or forsake us.

He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him – Psalm 18:30

This world can never provide any permanent shield or refuge for us. Only God alone is our refuge; Jesus paid the ultimate price on the cross to make sure we could find that refuge. Yet, just as Callie, we seek our own refuge in temporal things; finite solutions for an infinite soul. Let’s be honest; we know when we are not right with God. He sweetly whispers and pulls us to Him while the devil is yelling at us not to listen. He makes that ‘vehicle’ we’re trusting in for refuge seem perfectly solid – until that vehicle moves.

1 Corinthians 11:28 tells us to ‘let a man examine himself’. Let each of us examine ourselves and decide if we will take refuge in Jesus or under a vehicle.