Let’s Keep Running to the Refuge: (in)courage devotional

“Hey mom…” 

My eyes bolt open, adrenaline surges through my sleepy body. My mind races. “Is there an intruder? Is someone hurt? Is someone puking?”

I hear my daughter’s small voice, “Can I sleep with you? I had a bad dream.” 

Breathing a sigh out, I shift over in our bed to make room for her. My daughter often has vivid nightmares that wake her up in a fearful panic, unable to go back to sleep. I know the feeling; I still have some truly unsettling dreams that can pull me out of a dead sleep.

Like many children she makes the trek through the dark to her safe place–her parents’ bed. As she snuggles in, she whispers of the fears that woke her. I pull her close, her small body pressed against mine, my arms wrapped around her, holding her safe.

Psalm 91:2 says, “I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” (NIV)

The word translated “refuge” in this verse is often also translated as “hope, shelter, or trust”. It is the Hebrew word, “Mahase”. Both literally and figuratively a place of protection for us: a hopeful place, a home, and a sanctuary. 

Psalm 73:28 uses this word as well: “But as for me, it is good to be near God.I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”

Our hope is in God, our shelter, our safest place. It is good to be close to Him. When my daughter comes to our bed looking for refuge from her bad dreams, her hope isn’t in that king-size bed. 

Her hope is who is in the bed. 

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