1 God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging. ~ Psalm 46:1-3 (NIV)

It feels as though the earth

is going to hell in a handbasket.

We’ve stopped watching much news

in our house. But truth be told,

there have been worse states of the world…

at least once per millennium.

The Psalmist thought the news dire in his day…

mountains near quaking at the surging sea

seemed a possibility.

But his fallback was as ours,

God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

You and I may differ as to political parties,

differ on interpretation as to

whether it’s science or fear of wasting a crisis.

But the world survived the Bubonic plague

in the fourteenth century, a catastrophic

volcanic eruption that eradicated

the entire Minoan civilization around 1600 B.C.,

The 1887 Yellow River flood,

world wars and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The world will survive.

God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.*

* verses 10 and 11