With the rise of identity politics over recent years, it has become common for people to talk about ‘safe spaces’. A ‘safe space’ is a designated area, usually on a university campus or somewhere in the community, where you can talk about and express your sense of identity without fear of being criticised for it. Whatever we might make of such things, it is true that we all want to be in a place where we know that we are safe: a secure job, a trustworthy friendship, a loving relationship, and a stable home.

In Psalm 61, we find David longing for a safe place. It is a psalm written in the midst of a time of crisis for David, probably during the days of his son Absalom’s rebellion, when David had to flee from Jerusalem and live in hiding for a season. In the opening verses of the Psalm, we learn of David’s feelings in the midst of this crisis. He feels far from God and faint of heart: ‘from the end of the earth I cry to you when my heart is faint’ (v2). Furthermore, he knows he is facing the enemy (v3).

In the midst of such a crisis, David longs for a place where he can find true safety – and he comes to the realisation that the only place of real and lasting safety is found in God himself. Under a series of four images, David describes God as his ‘safe place’. He describes God as the rock on which to stand, the tower in which to find refuge, the one in whose tent we can come to dwell, and under whose wings we can find safety. Together, these four vivid, beautiful pictures make this single point: God is the place where we can be truly safe.

I wonder, are you going through a time of crisis at the moment? Maybe, like David in Psalm 61, you feel far from God. Maybe you feel faint hearted – lacking in strength, feeling emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually depleted. Maybe you are facing the attacks of the enemy from some quarter.

In the midst of such a crisis, where do you look for safety? Where are you taking refuge? Where are you escaping to? What are you pinning your hopes on to protect you and to provide for you, and to give you security?

Understand what David came to understand in his time of crisis – that God himself is the only place where you can be truly safe. Everything and everyone else will let you down, sooner or later, but God is the place of perfect safety for all of those who by faith take refuge in him. And so, like David, cry out to God that he would lead you to the rock that is higher than you, even Christ himself. That Christ would be the solid rock on which you stand, and the strong tower in which you take refuge. That, in Christ, God would welcome you into his presence to dwell with him forever, and shelter you under his wings. God, in Christ, is the place where you can be safe!

Having found perfect safety in God, David concludes the psalm by doing two things: he looks to the everlasting King (verses 6 and 7), and he pledges everlasting praise to God (verse 8). May those of us who have found safety in God respond in the same way, by faith continuing to look to our everlasting King Jesus, and giving to God our everlasting praise for the perfect safety we have found in Christ.

Andy Hambleton