Psalm 32:7 (NIV) You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

When trouble comes, sometimes you feel like hiding someplace until it blows over. But you find out in life that there is no hiding from trouble. It will find you wherever you try to hide...except in one place. That place is in Jesus. Whenever trouble comes to find you, Jesus is right there with you when you have made Him your Lord and Savior. Not only is He right there, but He knows how to hide you from the trouble. In other words, He will either shield you from the nastiness of the trouble or He will deliver you from it altogether. He hides you from fear, worry and anxiety and from facing your circumstances by yourself. He hides you from the feeling of hopelessness that comes when the trouble is overwhelming. He hides you from the devil's lies, which is his attempt to exacerbate the trouble you are in. Then the Lord does what He is famous for... He delivers you.

There is no better place to run to than to the Lord Jesus. When the soldiers and the mob of religious teachers came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, I suppose it would have been a greater victory for the enemies of God had all of the disciples been arrested as well so that they wouldn’t be able to spread any good news about Jesus. The Word of God tell us that when that mob showed up, Jesus stepped forward and told them that He was the one that they were looking for and told the mob to let the disciples go. He was in fact “hiding” them from being arrested along with Him. The Word of God tells us that this happened so that the words that He spoke when He had prayed to the Father would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me” (John 18:9). Though they were frightened, troubled and grief-stricken because of what happened, they would soon be singing songs of deliverance when Jesus rose from the dead three days later.

Jesus is still in the business of hiding His people when trouble comes or when you just have had enough of life’s ups and downs and you need a place of respite. He is that place, like nothing or no one else can be. Jesus knows how to hide you from the dark days that life sometimes brings. He knows how to deliver you and He is willing to deliver you. That’s how you learn the songs of deliverance that He inspires and that grow in number the longer you serve Him. Remember this always: you are not ever alone when you belong to Jesus. You have a place (Jesus Himself) that you can run to in order to find shelter, and He will surround you with deliverance and with the songs of deliverance that His saving acts produce. All you need to do is run to Him.

Pastor Joey Vazquez