I don’t see many fortresses these days. My neighborhood doesn’t look like a neighborhood of fortresses. I have been to Fort Sumter, and a couple of other historic sites, so I can conjure the image of a fortress. The purpose of a fortress is to keep people out, and also to keep people in.
Reading Psalm 48 today taught me about fortresses. I guess back in the time David was writing this psalm, having, and being in, a fortress was a big deal. Of course David was talking about Jerusalem when he said “Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised in the city of our God!…the joy of all the earth…her citadels….a fortress.” Are you getting the image of a college in Charleston? 🙂
He goes on to say in a very poetic manner that some kings came together and saw the fortress and, basically, flipped out. It says they trembled like the “anguish of a woman in labor.” If you watch Call the Midwife, you get it.
So a fortress back then was a big deal. It was touchable. It was seeable. You could walk around in it. Very tactile. David goes on to say that “As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever. This is where we come in.
Today’s fortress, protected by God, is in our mind. We must hear God’s word through the Bible. We must see with the eyes of our heart that God gave his Son as the ultimate blood sacrifice so that we could “Walk around Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels.” God is saying that not only will he stay with us forever, he will protect us from the enemy. As long as we are in, the enemy is out.
Remember this the next time your circumstances get in the way of your peace. When your son or daughter’s actions hurt your heart, when your pet is ill, when a friend wounds you, when your spouse wounds you, when you cannot control something you want to control, please remember, you are in God’s fortress. Imagine it in your mind. Inside. Safe. Protected. With your good and awesome friend, Jesus. Pray for yourself and your attitudes to be changed, inside the fortress with our God.
Poet, Writer, Christian, Southern, Wife, Mother, Child, Employer, always learning.
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