Refuge

Yesterday a friend of ours was driving home to Kansas from his second home in Missouri, where his property joins ours. Late in the afternoon, he drove into storms near Joplin, Missouri, about 2 1/2 hours west of here. He recalled the hail falling in sheets, and even the driving, horizontal rain looking white, like a snowstorm. In some places, water ran over the highway like a stream, and he was repeatedly forced to stop because of lack of visibility. For a while, he took shelter from the wind in his car behind a large building, and when the wind and hail shifted and came from the south, he was able to drive north.Within a few minutes, he saw blue sky, and was out of the storm.

We talked to him on the phone after he got home, and were so glad that he was safe. Only this morning, after we saw the news of the massive tornado in Joplin, did we realize the extent of what he had narrowly escaped.

Centuries ago, David, king of Israel, wrote:

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 it's waters roar and foam,
and the mountains quake with their surging.

Psalm 46:1

Had King David been in Joplin last night, I'm quite confident he would have written the same thing, because his hope was not only in this life, but he had that certain hope; he had:

...the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie,

 promised before time began.

Titus 1:2

This morning in Joplin, in the aftermath of the storm, I'm certain that there are many people whose faith in the Lord Jesus is even stronger than it was yesterday morning, because they know that hope, and it has been confirmed in their hearts in a way it never was before.

Our hearts go out to them, and they are in our prayers.