The Only Place That's Safe {9/11}

They lined us up for execution — one by one — little white flags in our hands, words in a language I didn’t understand.  Fear rolled through my stomach, “We’re actually going to die.” I stood, waiting … waiting … waiting …

Bang! The wind blew the fence gate shut outside my bedroom window. I sat up in bed, out of breath from the vivid, sickening dream, the curtains flapping from the night’s wind. I almost never have dreams.

The previous night’s dream was terror of a different kind — not physical death, just marital.

I looked at the clock — 6:03am. Feeling in the dark that Jeff was already up, I crept downstairs and found him in the corner chair, leaning over his Bible, the warm glow of a lamp behind him. When I’d settled in next to him he spoke,  “I had the most horrible dreams last night …”

Him too?

Strangely, I felt comforted. God is on the move, of that I know.  After hanging laundry on the line, I crept back upstairs for quiet time. Opened my Bible to my place, it’s always Jeremiah in September. Kind of wished I were in Psalms —will Jeremiah really have words for me today? I found my place, Chapter 26, and looked at the heading: “Jeremiah Threatened with Death.”  Hmm. Maybe it will apply…

Jeremiah is prophesying to King Jehoiakim about the impending disaster coming upon them if they do not repent and turn from their evil deeds.  His words aren’t popular, as you can imagine, so

“when he finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, ‘You shall die!’ (v.8)

“Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, ‘This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city.” (v.11)

Is Jeremiah safe? How does he respond? First he exhorts them to mend their ways and obey the voice of the Lord, and then he says,

“But as for me, behold I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you … for in truth the LORD sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.” (v.14-15)

I am in your hands.

How could Jeremiah say that? How could he entrust himself into the hands of an angry mob of people who most certainly intended to kill him?

He knew whose hands he really was in. 

Jeremiah could entrust himself to their hands because he’d first entrusted himself to God’s hands. 

Perhaps he knew the song of David by heart,

“In God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?”

Jeremiah was safe because his heart was free of fear. He was then spared from death. But you know what the very next story holds? Another prophet, Uriah, who had spoken the same sort of words. His story is told,

There was another man who prophesied … Uriah … He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. And when King Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and all the officials, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt. Then … they took Uriah from Egypt and brought him down to King Jehoiakim, who struck him down with the sword and dumped his dead body into a burial place of the common people.” (vv.20-23)

Jeremiah knew whose hands he was in so he entrusted himself to the people and was spared.  Uriah, who spoke the same message, was “afraid and fled and escaped,” and yet was put to death. 

Where are we truly safe?

Today we are reminded that this world is not safe. I remember the emergency landing, the panic in the passengers, the calling my parents and hearing their sobs of relief knowing we were ok. I’m on my knees this weekend praying for friends who lost dear ones ten years ago.  How can we trust when this world is not safe?

The only place we’re truly safe is the place of trusting God. Of refusing to escape, to fear, to flee. Sometimes escape, fleeing, is subtle — It can make us run to facebook, food, entertainment, control. But whenever we escape, we let the enemy win.

The only real enemy we face is fear. Fear will bury us deep and rob us of a life of experiencing the love of God. 

“In God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?”

Even if our dollar bills don’t say that we trust God …

Our lives must. 

Because that is the only place that’s truly safe.

—

{I pray God’s comfort and grace to you whose pain is so real this day. Thank you for letting me be part of your day; thank you for reading.}