In Psalm 62 David says, “My soul, rest quietly in God alone, for my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I will not be disturbed. My salvation and my honor depend on God, my strong rock. My refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts before him. God is a refuge for us.” David talks to his soul in this — “Hey soul, rest quietly in God alone, for my hope comes from God alone.” That word quietly jumps off the page to me. When worries, doubts, and fears are crashing in, they almost seem to consume all the ability I have to think…but then I am reminded of what David says – “Rest quietly in God alone.”
David calls God our refuge and fortress. If an enemy is attacking, where do you want to be? Behind the safety of thick walls, right? You want a fortress and refuge—one that is safe, secure, dependable, reliable. When God describes Himself as our fortress, it means that there will be things that are going to come against us—but when those things do come, He promises to deal with it, to work good from it, to love us during it and through it.
David also says God is called our salvation. God being our salvation implies that we need to be saved from something. And this is not being saved from trouble or hardship even though that’s our desire. This is being saved from our own personal sins, those things that can actually separate us from God. He demands perfection and we have been far from it. Is He still going to forgive us, to be our salvation, if we continue to heap sin upon sin? Well, that’s why the description that David uses next for God is so important.
He says God is our rock, even our strong rock. God is stable and solid, like a gigantic rock that cannot be moved no matter how hard we might push on it. So, you will not get up one day and find that God has decided to be done with you. God continues to stably and perfectly love you and desires to move you toward Him even when we wander away from Him so often.
Because of God’s protection, forgiveness, and stability for us, why wouldn’t we bring every problem to Him? From the small pain to the gigantic personal problem, he wants us to bring all of it to him, and in faith to trust that he will work these things for our eternal good. He is, after all, a refuge for us. So, rest quietly in God, not because he’s going to make life perfectly serene this side of eternity. He won’t. But rest quietly in God because no matter how loud the problems of this life or the guilt of our sin shout—He is greater than all of them. Amen.
Pastor Dave