October 24

Psalm 16:1 acknowledges a reality that is a comfort to everyone who believes in the all-encompassing goodness, mercy, love, and protection of our great and almighty God. It says, “Keep and protect me, O God, for in You I have found refuge and in You do I put my trust and hide myself.”

No matter how big we are, no matter how powerful we are, no matter how many people tremble at a mere word from us because our authority is over them in some fashion, under our guise of self-sufficiency, authority, power, superiority, lurks the little child who is sometimes afraid.

Some of the most bombastic or self-confident among us may be the most fearful. The façade of control might be just that—a false presentation of ourselves to camouflage the hurting person within who longs for assurance, for a sense of well-being, for the knowledge of being secure in hands that are stronger than our own.

The Lord extends this assurance to us. Whether we are weak and frail, and know we are, or whether we have deluded ourselves into thinking (or at least have projected the thought to others) that we can handle anything that comes down the pike—we are truly secure when we place our lives in God’s loving hand.