Isaiah 25:4 ” You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.”

I think David summed up the verse above best when he wrote, ” It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” (Psalm 118:8)  If COVID 19 has shown us anything it’s just how frail we are and how precarious our way of life is.  This virus has exposed to us that mankind is extremely vulnerable and as a whole powerless against it.  So as David wrote, we can’t depend on man to protect us…only God can do that.  In Psalm 55 when David was overwhelmed with fear he, “hurried to my place of shelter far from the tempest and storm.”   Our trust then must be in God not man, for He is our rock where we can take refuge…that place of calm and peace, where we can feel safe.

Psalm 55: 12-13 ” If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend…”

If you read the first eight verses of Psalm 55 you have to wonder – what’s gotten into David.  This mighty man of God and fierce warrior…someone who as a youngster killed Goliath with a single stone…is now quaking in his boots.  Bravery has been replaced by abject terror…overwhelming fear now overshadows this once courageous man.   It’s to the point, in verses 6-8 that David is ready to give up and just run away.  So who is this person that’s affecting David so?  It turns out to be his own flesh and blood…his son, Absalom, who’s attempting to seize the kingdom away from him.  This once fierce warrior is facing an enemy he’s never encountered before, and his anguished heart can hardly bear it.