Psalm 62:5-7, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.”
When David says “For God ALONE…” and , “He ONLY…,” he is emphasizing that there is no other sure refuge for the soul other than the One True God. Every other wall or refuge behind which we may try to hide will eventually be exposed as a false hope.
We probably all know what its like to be faced with a challenge (to our safety or plans or identity etc.) and to run to a false refuge….to run to the statistics, or our achievements, or our victories, or the promise of a new relationship or lifestyle etc. And those things may feel like a refuge for a time, but ultimately, every one of those things will be torn down. I say this to myself as much as to anyone else: when we find ourselves hiding in and hoping in something other than who God is for us right now in Christ, we are—at that moment—in a false and crumbling refuge…
I tried to depict that in this image by showing the walls of the city broken down while the refuge and mighty tower of YHWH stands unmoved at the center. Ultimately, of course, YHWH is the refuge of His people in the person of the crucified and risen Jesus, that is why the tower in this image is the body of the crucified Christ. The wounds of His death in our place become the doorway by which we enter the Refuge of Sabbath rest, that is to say, the Refuge of fellowship with God in His Son by His Spirit…a fellowship that is itself eternal life and into which we will forever be drawn further up and further in.
