The Hiding Place

UV 3204/10000 The Hiding Place
Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
Psalm 32 v 7
The Lord is our first, only and ultimate hiding place. There is no safer place than the bosom of the Lord. He is our only refuge from our oppressors, enemies, foes. He preserves us from the snares of death and of temptation. He rescues us from our troubles. We remain unscathed though we pass through fire and water. Though the enemy comes like a flood, the Lord repulses him and defends us with His right hand. Scripture states that our lives are hid in Christ with God. We are like sharpened arrows in His quiver. We are spiritual weapons in His hand but we ourselves are shielded by Him. Indeed, “ Salvation belongs to the Lord, the One who sits on the throne and the Lamb.” It implies that the Lord is enthroned in the midst of our trials and troubles and only His sovereign will is executed.
The first man and woman after falling from grace into sin hid from the presence of God. We should however continually seek His presence and hide in Him as a child hides in the folds of the robes of her parent. He protects us from the proud, the arrogant, the wicked, the envious and the devious. We hide in Him when we spend time alone with Him in prayer and delve deeper into His word. Scripture states that blessed is the man who finds his refuge in the shadow of the Lord. The presence of the Lord is always upon us like an invisible shadow. Our awareness of His presence will keep us from fear, doubt, hopelessness, loneliness and despondency.
There is something overwhelming in everyone’s life from which he or she wants to hide. In this context, Psalm 91 is a veritable Life Insurance Policy for it promises that if we hide in the Lord, the hunter will not find us or harm us. He will protect us and preserve us from the snares or traps of the hunter. He protects us from deadly plagues or epidemics. “A thousand shall die beside us, ten thousand at our right hand but it shall not come near us.” It also promises that we need not fear terror by day or night. He protects us from sudden death. We will only see the just reward of the wicked and unrepentant who oppress us. He promises that as we hide in Him, no evil will befall us or overtake us. We are under His protective wings, His wall of fire around us, His angels surround us. We have several layers of protection and security. He gives power to trample underfoot the “lion” meaning the open assault of the enemy as well as the “serpent” or the subtle attacks of the enemy. As we hide in Him, He sets him high on a rock or a position of strength and impregnable security. He answers us as we call on Him. He will be with us in trouble and walk us through it. He rescues and honours us. He satisfies us with longevity and with eternal life. Imagine we have all these benefits just for the one act of hiding in Him. I can testify that all these promises were fulfilled in my life as I hid in the Lord: He preserved my life from drowning in the sea. He protected me when eighteen people died all round me in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination by a powerful “human bomb”. Thereafter, He protected me from being disgraced in any way. Instead, He honoured me by enabling me to be the only civil servant to be selected for the flagship prestigious British Gurukul Chevening scholarship rolled out on India’s golden jubilee in 1997 to select twelve future leaders of the country. He enabled me to be the first world-wide to create new concepts, techniques, disciplines like Equilibrium Thinking , Friends of Police, Excenomics. He enabled me purely by His grace to win the inaugural Her Majesty, the Queen’s Award for Innovation in Police Training and Development in 2002.