When I was a kid I ran away from home for over a week. Well, I would come home at night and sometimes in the middle of the day if I got hungry, but I did run away. Every day I would get up, wrap a bandana around my head like a pirate and then load some snacks and whatnots into another bandana and tie it on a stick like a hobo. Then I would march out in to the woods. I was a hobo pirate living in the woods of Alabama. I only went about half a mile from home, but internally I was in another place, in another world. I was on an adventure. I was free.
The impulse to run away is universal. We long for a place to go to get away from it all.
Two weeks ago during my prayer time I began to focus God’s promise to be my rock, my fortress, my hiding place. I am an adult now; I can’t run away like I did as a child. But I have found a place to hide.
The Bible speaks of this hiding place as “being under the shadow of the Almighty.” I like that. The pressure screams out, the waves roar, and the God who is at peace speaks to me, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.”
Even in the hardest, the darkest times, His presence sustains. There is a powerful scene in the movie “The Hiding Place”, where Corrie Ten Boom’s sister is about to die and she tells Corrie she must survive and tell others, “no matter how deep it is, He is deeper still.”
My first sermon, I was 16 years old, was titled, “The pause that refreshes.” I used the story of Samson in the temple of Dagon, his hands against the two pillars and he prayed for strength one last time (Judges 16). Broken and spent, betrayed, blinded, and beaten, Samson finds in prayer “a pause that refreshes.”
I shut out the noise and the pressure by going into my hiding place. And there I pray until I have the peace of God. This is what the old saints called “praying through.”
There is a lot of talk these days about people “coming out of the closet.” I for one think we Jesus Followers need to get back into the closet: to the place of divine exchange, where we exchange our weakness for His strength, our emptiness for His fullness, our barrenness for His fruitfulness, and our inability for His ability.
The promise remains, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30, ESV)
Pray though my friend. Pray until the peace of God floods your heart and mind. Hide under shadow of the Almighty because whatever is over your head is still under His feet. There is for you a secret place and a pause that refreshes.
Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
