December 27

For we walk by faith, not by sight. — 2 Cor 5:7 BSB

The very nature of faith is to trust in the dark, when everything seems to be against it. It trusts that a calm will follow the storm, that God will appear even when we feel only evil. Faith is tender, childlike, and implicitly confident—it submits to God and looks to Him. There is something filial and spiritual about this trust. It is not the reckless boldness of presumption or the despairing fears of hopelessness. Instead, it is something beyond both extremes, remote from both rash presumption and paralyzing despair. It’s a trust grounded in past experiences of God's favor, ensuring future ones, and sustained by a soul clinging to the Lord simply because He is who He is.

Why do we have no other refuge? Because all false refuges have failed us. It’s a safe, though uncomfortable, place to be like David, who said, "Refuge failed me; no one cared for my soul" (Psalm 142:4). Until refuge fails us in man, in ourselves, in the world, or even in the church, we won’t look to Christ as our true refuge. But when we come to the point where we say, "You are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living" (Psalm 142:5), then we trust fully in Him. This kind of trust brings a flood of desires, longings, and prayers pouring into the bosom of our Immanuel, God with us.