Safe.

Uphold me that I may be safe.  ~ Ps:119:117

'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.  ~ C.S. Lewis

I seem to have landed unexpectedly on a series of sorts. As you might expect, most of my bloggish inspirations come, not from a random—or even strategic—schedule of topics, but tend to be prompted by my own journey through life. Circumstances, celebrations, and struggles give rise to ideas large and small.

Two weeks ago, I explored the “pathos” in the interplay between blessing and difficulty, the yin and yang dance captured in Julian’s provocative insight that sin is behovely, but all shall be well. Last week, I wrote about the periodic challenges and invitations embedded in “liminal space”—that untethered void between one solid place and the next. Underneath both of these topics lies one crucial existential question: Are we safe in this world?

You can hear David’s poignant yearning for that security in the verse above… and our hearts echo the cry. Safety is perhaps the most fundamental and instinctive desire of the human heart—it sort of enfolds all three of Thomas Keating’s core needs: security, approval, and control. As we consider David’s tumultuous life—his fight to the death with Goliath, his efforts to stay one step ahead of a murderous king, his many battles and wars—the plea for safety rings true. Our slightly more mundane struggles for health, job security, and enduring relationships still revolve consistently around the same prayer.

So in the context of this universal human longing, let’s get real. How do we make sense of the unavoidable reality that Christians, just like our non-Christian neighbors, contract cancer, get divorced, lose jobs, have car wrecks, and take anti-depressants? Is belief or prayer or tithing or purity a talisman against the great griefs of life? Can spiritual warfare or faith healers or scripture memory insulate us from loss?

Christ-followers would answer these probing questions in various ways. For me, it comes down to how we understand what it means to be safe. For me, there is one biblical promise that goes unchallenged and unqualified for all time… “And surely I am with you always….” The enduring and sustaining presence of God, exemplified in the human journey of Jesus, and mediated by the Holy Spirit is our safety.

It is the same safety that surrounded Jesus as he bore the betrayal of a friend, sweated blood in Gethsemane, and protested his abandonment on the cross. As James Finley spoke in last week’s post, it is a safety that does not protect us from suffering but sustains us with undying affection, grants us a significant degree of human agency, and sets our feet on the solid rock of belonging. God gives us himself/herself. And that is enough. I would like more, but this much is good.

C.S. Lewis posits that God (Aslan) isn’t safe but is good. And I think that’s what I’m trying to say here: Knowing that God can be and will be good to me even in the midst of painful circumstance actually makes me feel safe. Knowing that “the deepest me is God” (St. Catherine of Genoa), I am indeed safe.

growing the soul

Do you feel safe in this world? How do you reconcile the presence of loss and suffering with God’s goodness toward you?

serving the world

How might you be offer an expression of God’s goodness and safety to someone who’s hurting in your world today?

takeaway

God is enough.