Psalm 46:2, ‘…though the earth gives way…’
In Psalm 46, we see that YHWH God Himself is the unshakable refuge for those who have fled to and hidden themselves in Him. To emphasize this point, the Psalmist employs catastrophic language about the earth itself being shattered, the mountains being hurled into the sea, or the ocean rising up to challenge even the seemingly unassailable heights (v.2-3). In each image, those things that *seemed* immovable, that *seemed* ever reliable, that *seemed* invincible, are overthrown…this is a picture of immense, life-altering trauma…and when that happens—*when* the eons-old assurances are utterly overthrown, where is any security to be found? Only in YHWH.
That’s the psalmist’s point, God Himself is the intimately present refuge in the midst of world-shattering trauma. And how is He this refuge? Ultimately, it is because He has borne the totality of the shattered cosmos in His own experience of shattering on the cross. As the Man of (our) Sorrows, who is Acquainted with (our) Grief, as the One who has passed through every Fire and endured every Flood before us and as our representative, and as the One who stands now as the Living One who, died (all our deaths) and now, behold, is alive forevermore (Rev.1:18), as *this one* YHWH God in Christ is the ‘very present help’ to us, even—and especially—in the midst of the complete upheaval of our worlds.
May we, then, collapse in the desperation of faith into the everlasting arms of THIS God, may we entrust ourselves, our loved ones, our uncertainties, our fears, our futures, and all that we are into HIS hands, and—in that place of complete dependence—may we say with the Psalmist, ‘GOD is our refuge and strength…therefore I will not fear.’
