Safe and Secure in The Refuge of God

“You are safe and secure in the refuge of God. That is the major theme.” John Eldredge, Experience Jesus, Really.

I’ve been contemplating the major and minor Themes, and my heart’s orientation towards them. Consider for a moment your heart, and its posture as you read this quote. Would you say you are safe and secure in the refuge of God? Is that the major theme in your heart right now? If we’re honest, myself included, we all must return daily to God’s love as our refuge, sometimes minute by minute.

This refuge, the love of God, and the major theme of our story, is not an escape from the minor theme, the world at war within and without. The love of God equips us to engage fully the minor themes. As we seek refuge in God, we are filled with His love, purging hatred from hearts. This brings freedom: freedom to heal, freedom to love God, our neighbors, our enemies, and ourselves. It is not an escape, but rather it empowers us to engage and confront the darkness, not with hatred, but with love, not with darkness, but with light. When we live in the refuge of God, we flourish. When we flourish in God’s love, we bring healing and flourishing to the world.

To return to God’s love as our refuge, we must take note, and control, of the pace of our lives. God is constantly pursuing our hearts. He is so kind. We do have a part to play though. We must acknowledge that the pace of our lives, of our days, is not very conducive to the restoration of our hearts in God’s refuge. We live distracted. Often, at such a pace, we tend to gravitate towards relief instead of restoration. Friends, these are not one and the same. Relief is easy. We often feel an initial resistance towards restoration. Notice though how you feel, notice the orientation of your heart after each. Relief often leaves us as we were, while restoration fills our hearts with God’s love and orients us towards the major theme of our story. Restoration brings us back to the refuge of the love of God.

And this is why we offer First Wednesdays | A Deeper Union. We have created space to slow down and return to God’s love. We offer these once a month intentionally, as a parish-wide practice, to invite God’s healing, restoration, and flourishing into our hearts and lives as we go forth into the world, sharing this love and this flourishing with those around us.