The Shadow of Your Wings

Psalm 17:8 (NIV)- Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings

Psalm 36:7 - (NIV) How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 57:1 (NIV)- Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

Psalm 63:7 (NIV)- Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

I read one of these passages this week but I wrote the verse down wrong so I'm not sure which one. So I did the thing I normally do and did a search on BibleGateway.com. I searched the phrase that I'd written down. Come to find out that phrase appears four times, all in the Psalms (no where else).

When I wrote this passage down, I also wrote: How big is God? We, or at least I have a tendency to think in terms I can (almost) comprehend. I make His just a little larger than the biggest, best thing I can think of. But God is really so much more than that.

I read the book called The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. There is a lot interesting about this book. Some may not be Biblical, I'm not sure. But I like it anyway. One major reason I like it is that this book clearly, emphatically, visually takes God out of the box I have him in. He looks differently. He talks differently. He is just different and so much more than I thought to imagine. To be clear, I don't picture God as a human. I believe Him to be so much more than that. I don't even picture Him in a physical sense. This book has at least put more windows in that box I've got God in (in my head, of course.)

But this phrase, "in the shadow of your wings", makes God so large. Which makes sense. God is everywhere at all times. That means He must be very very large. He has to span all of creation at one time. So we can find shelter and refuge in the shadow of his wings. That is how big God is. His wing span alone is so large that we all can find rest and safety there.

Creator God, Please forgive me when I put you in a box and make you so much smaller than you really are. Enlarge my idea of you so that I always come to you to rest in the shadow of your wings. Amen

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