The Fortress - Introduction

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’ The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalms 46:1‭-‬11 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.46.1-11.NIVUK

In 2003, I was in Ormoc City, Philippines, when it was raining. Now, I'm Scottish. We do not dissolve when it rains. If we did, the entire population of Scotland would be one big puddle. So I was not afraid. My fiancee, as she was then, had to do a little work in an office on the outskirts, so I went with her and sat reading a newspaper while she did her thing. Only the rain got heavier. And heavier. And heavier. The motorbike rickshaws (or tricycles, as they call them there) were starting to actually generate waves in the water on the road. Most of them were only headed in one direction - away from the city. I turned to my fiancee and said, "Eh, darling, if we want to leave, I think we need to leave now." We packed up quickly and headed outside under an umbrella, which was being battered by the rain and the increasingly strong wind. We somehow found a tricycle going in our direction and headed for the centre of town. The waves were crashing several metres high over the sea wall. My fiancee had a client who ran one of the biggest hotels in the city, so we took shelter there for a while. Until the wind started to tease open the tin roof of the building next door. Then we ran. We ran across rivers of water almost knee deep in roads. We made it in time for the last transport out and sat in an herioc old jeepney as it sloshed its way carefully to her village. We had been hit by a typhoon. In a city where a mudslide had killed 8,000 people less than ten years previously. That is how many of us are feeling right now. It feels like we are in a slow-burning disaster movie. Let's not be afraid of saying it: Coronavirus is a global disaster. I don't know how it can be called anything else. However, we found shelter in the middle of the most frightening storm I have ever been in. Shelter that keep us warm and dry. Shelter that kept us safe. Shelter that got us home. For billions of Christians across the globe, that shelter is God. This psalm is all about sheltering in God while the storm rages. We are going to use verse 10, one of the most famous verses in the Bible, as our way in as we see how it is that we can truly be still in God while everything around us goes crazy. Firstly, let's begin by looking at GOD in my next post.