Yahweh, Your Dwelling Place

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Psalm 90:1

A dwelling place, or shelter, is built to protect its inhabitants from the elements specific to the region in which it is placed. The basements and cellars of Kansas farms offer protection against the Kansas tornadoes. The architecture of structures found along the San Andreas fault provides additional defense against earthquakes. Floodplain dwellings are often built on stilts. The thick-walled pueblos offer a reprieve from the heat, while the dome-shaped igloos maintain warmth.

All of these earthly shelters are designed to offer a specific protection. But they are faulty. An F5 tornado can pick a house up and drop the whole of it back into the basement without any regard for the inhabitants therein. The floods rise high, knock the stilts from under a home, and carry it away in its powerful current. Earthquakes topple the most reinforced of buildings. The cold penetrates. The heat wearies.

But, child of God, rejoice knowing the almighty Yahweh is your dwelling place. He has promised it. And He is perfect. There is no storm or element or disaster that can impale His walls or shake His foundation. And just as our Lord has been a dwelling place to His children for generations and generations, He is a dwelling place to you. Uniquely to you. If you stand in the freeze of relational strife, Your God will give you warmth. If you walk the dessert of spiritual dryness, your Divine Dwelling Place will provide you water. He is your steadfastness in the earthquake, your refuge in the tornado. The rivers will not overwhelm you. The fire will not burn you.

In Yahweh, your dwelling place, you are as safe as you need to be. Do not doubt His desire for your good.