The Lord is my Refuge

 What does it mean "The Lord is my Refuge"?

In my meditation today I was reflecting on the verse "In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge." taken from Psalm 90:1. It is sometimes translated to "Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.". Is refuge a place I can escape to when we are under attack? Or is it a feeling of being secured and protected? Or is it a friendship with the Almighty God?

The rest of Psalm 90 can be summarized like this:

• God is an everlasting God (v.2)
• He is unchanging, not limited by time (v.4)
• Men's life on earth is brief (vs.3, 5-6, 10)
• God's wrath and our iniquities and sins under His judgement (vs.7-9,11)
• Our plea for God's mercy (vs. 12-15)
• May God's will be done in us (vs. 16-17)

"Let your work be manifest to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and prosper for us the work of our hands—
    O prosper the work of our hands!"

Maybe the last two verses speak clearly to me what a Refuge is?

In my daily prayers I recite Psalm 61:1-4. This is my prayer: "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I;
for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy."

Psalm 121: "I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

and who is this Lord? In Exodus 14:14 which I pray at 14:14 hour (my watch is set an alarm to remind me): "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still." He is this Lord to whom I place my confidence!

At 3pm every day I am reminded (again my watch has an alarm set!) on what Jesus said on the cross "It is finished!" and I thank Jesus that no matter what happened during the day, His purpose is accomplished in me and carrying the cross is part of it. For "In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge."

Lectio Divina - The Parable of the Sower

Today marks the first day of my new discipline of mental prayer following the VLX (video Lectio Divina) method - a form of Lectio Divina popularized recently by Sensus Fidelium and Pilgrim Priest on the now very popular Youtube medium for learning. I will commit 15 minutes a day to meditate on 1 verse in my daily gospel reading. So today's verse is Luke 8:15. If you follow the link from Biblegateway.com I opened up 4 translations: NRSVCE, Mounce (Greek), Vulgate (Latin), and either NIV or MSG. I will simply read the verse multiple times in the original Greek and these multiple translations to try to understand what Jesus is actually saying to me. Then I set my timer (key to success), then be silent and listen... 15 minutes later:

What spoke to me most was on this one part:

"hold firmly onto the word (logos) and 

 bear fruit (karpophoreō) through patient endurance (hypomonē)"

What I'll do: 

• I will commit this verse (as the word of God) into memory
• I will hold on to Christ - the Word of God - to love Him and gaze on His beauty, to pray to him without ceasing
  
• I will be patient (not my time but His time)
  
• I will endure (which will include sufferings no doubt)
• I will anticipate and long for the fruit - praise Him and be thankful
  

What is so beautiful about the Biblegaeway.com is the feature that when I clicked on the word "karpophoreō" I get this extra information from the Strong Concordance: καρποφορέω (karpophoreō); Strong: G2592; GK: G2844 - to bear fruit, yield, Mk. 4:28; met, to bring forth the fruit of action or conduct, Mt. 13:23; Rom. 7:5; mid. to expand by fruitfulness, to develop itself by success, Col. 1:6, 10

This speaks to my intellect but can be distracting...

I look forward to doing this every day or as often as I can. I am thankful for the many ways these tools can help me grow in my faith.

This morning the men's group I am part of had a zoom session on

Aquinous 101 - Powers of the Soul. 

Imitation of Christ - Book 1 Fourth Chapter - Prudence in Action.

Great discussion and I learned a lot from my brothers in Christ!