God is Our Refuge
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear … Psalm 46:1
It was good to see members of the Kunda Bible translation project when I (Ken) visited there last week. I got to spend some good time with our manuscript coordinator. I asked him if he had planted maize this year. (Maize is the staple crop all across Zambia. Without a successful harvest, people go hungry and are forced to scavenge on anything to survive). He told me that floods came twice and washed his crop away.
Later, as I sat at the home of one of our translators, I also asked about his maize crop. His wife told me that their plants were three feet high, but everything was lost in a flood. They had not seen water so high before. Not only were their fields flooded, but high water came into their yard. Then water entered their house and stayed for three days. Fearing that thieves might come in the night, he put a plastic chair on top of a bed and slept in the chair all night, surrounded by several inches of water on the floor.
As I talked with each of them, I was really impressed by how they told their story. They recounted what happened with a sense of faith in God. They must go on. They have work to do for the Lord. Somehow God will provide.
It blessed me that in the midst of such disasters, God had given them faith. As the writer of Psalm 42 continues, may we all:
Be still, and know that He is God;
He will be exalted among the nations,
He will be exalted in the earth.
Despite floods, despite pandemics, despite the worst the world can throw at us, God’s Name will be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. He will fulfill His purposes. Our task is to yield to all that He wants to do through us.
