Refuge, Not Rescue

Psalm 46:1-2 (NRSV)God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.

Psalm 46 was likely written for a nation under siege—some scholars connect it to the night Jerusalem woke up to find an invading army gone, the threat dissolved overnight with no explanation the city had engineered for itself. The Hebrew word for refuge here is machaseh (mah-khah-SEH), a shelter, a place you flee to when there's nowhere else to go. For people behind those walls, machaseh wasn't a metaphor. It was the stone and mortar keeping them alive while the siege dragged on, day after day, with no guarantee of how it would end. It's a song written by people who knew what it was to be sheltered in the middle of danger, not just delivered from it afterward.

A specific time in my life comes to mind when I read Psalm 46. It's not the first story I'd tell about my faith, but it's the one that surfaces without fail whenever I get to these verses.

I spent much of the last few years before I retired overseeing a portfolio of capital projects at the university where I worked. The largest one I ever managed was an athletic and recreation center—a $28 million build. When we signed the contract to host a large summer camp of athletes in the facility, we had months of schedule cushion. But construction eats cushion. Delays, weather, small scope changes — each thing is reasonable on its own, until one day the cushion is gone, and you're up against a date you can't move.

One thing stood between us and opening: the handicap spaces in the parking lot still needed striping before we could get our certificate of occupancy. The lot itself was already paved. We just needed dry pavement long enough to paint the lines. And it would not stop raining.

By the Thursday before the campers arrived, we still didn't have the certificate, and there was no plan B—no other facility that could hold a camp that size. If the certificate didn't come through, we were canceling a contract in front of people counting on us.

There's no other way to say it. This was trouble—the real kind, out of my hands, with a clock I couldn't stop.

After a sleepless night, I got out of bed well before sunrise that Thursday, completely undone. I told God, plainly, that I was lost. My men's Bible study met that morning, and I told them everything—the lot, the rain, the deadline. They prayed with me, and I remember it being a real prayer. The rain was still coming down sideways when we finished, with more of the same forecast for the next day. I left not knowing anything had changed, but somehow at peace with the situation, wherever it might lead.

The storm broke that morning. By mid-morning Thursday, the rain had cleared, and the pavement was dry enough for the crews to paint the lines. The county signed off, and we had our certificate of occupancy Friday afternoon. The athletes arrived Monday, and the camp ran without a hitch.

When we got that certificate Friday, I walked into the empty arena by myself and sat in the circle at center court. I lowered my head and thanked God for his provision. I didn’t earn it, and I couldn’t have solved the problem.

It's been seven years, and I still can't tell this story without something catching in my chest.

I don't know why the rain broke when it did, and I'm not going to pretend I do. It's a miraculous story, and I'm humbled every time I tell it. And although I associate the whole thing with Psalm 46, it isn’t really what the Psalm is about. It isn't a psalm about rain clearing or a miraculous rescue. It's a psalm about refuge. And for me, the association isn’t Friday afternoon; it is Thursday morning.