Our Safe Place
We live in a world of keys, locks, alarms, and security systems. We protect the things that are most valuable to us. I asked Karen if she wanted Mom to have her wedding ring on for the viewing last Thursday, and then we could remove it once the casket would be tightly closed. She told me the ring was in a safety deposit box at the bank and preferred to leave it there for now.
For years, my husband and I had many important documents in a safety deposit box. We had a dear friend who had no documents in hers, but some very precious, rare, expensive jewelry in hers. I wondered “Why have those items if they can’t be worn or used?” But to both of us, we didn’t want to risk our items being stolen, broken, or burned up, so we took them to the bank and entrusted it all to the protection of a safety deposit box.
The key word is ENTRUSTED. We entrust our home’s protection to a security system. We entrust the care of our children to a day care or school system. Even more than a bank lock box, our home’s security system or our children in someone else’s care, whatever we entrust to God, we can be assured that He is going to take care of it. We can count on it. He has a perfect track record.
Other people and systems may not have a consistent track record of taking care of things for us. But whatever we entrust to God, we can be assured “It’s done and done!” A long time ago when we were young, inexperienced, and green in just about every area of life, we entrusted all we had to God – and that included what concerned us – from the huge pressures to the daily details of making ends meet.
What is more precious to us than the truth of God’s saving grace in the Gospel? Thankfully, God has pre-wired all of us with a security system to help protect that incredibly precious hope. This security system lives in us. It is the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul said: “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you — guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” ( 2 Timothy 1:13-14)
Maybe today there are worries, concerns, family, children, husband, wife, and every situation that are on our minds today that need to be entrusted to God. All of it – from the least to the greatest – needs to be entrusted to the safety deposit box of God’s love.
Worry is, in a way, like atheism. We act like spiritual orphans who don’t have a Father in Heaven Who loves us and Who can be trusted. Worry is unbelief. It’s saying we don’t believe the thousands of promises God made in His Word. The most difficult time for us to put our “stuff” in God’s safety deposit box is when we’re in pain. When we are suffering, we don’t want to trust God. We want to pull it back and hold it to ourselves.
Once again, Paul, who knew pain and suffering, clarified “entrusting” it all to God. “I am suffering here in prison. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the One in whom I trust, and I am sure that He is able to guard what I have ENTRUSTED to Him until the day of His return.” (2 Timothy 1:12)
Maybe, like me, you need to take all those concerns and worries today – let them go, give them – ENTRUST them to God’s safety deposit box. That’s when we are convinced that God is alive and well and He can be TRUSTED, in due season to work ALL THINGS for our good.