As is often the case with my sleep patterns, I woke up in the middle of the night last evening and had difficulty returning to slumber. So, as per my usual, I prayed. I’ve decided that if I am awake when the moon is out, I might as well do something useful with my time and beseech the Lord’s intervention for family and friends. I also asked God to intercede in my own life and that of my wife—that through times when it feels that God is absent from certain situations, we both might be at peace.
Have you ever felt that God is dilly-dallying in answering your prayers?
While I lay in bed and prayed, I began to feel the opposite of peace—a sense of anxiety and worry that was not conducive to rest. Trying hard to keep my mind on Jesus, I drifted off just long enough to be jolted awake by one dominant word in my mind. Stronghold. “Stronghold?” I repeated, now fully awake again. In the quiet of the night, I sensed that the Lord had just spoken and that I was to pay attention to that single word—a word that I had not heard, or said, or thought about for a very long time.
In the morning, and once I was fully conscious with a hot coffee in hand, my wife looked up the word stronghold, after I told her about my experience. Mirriam-Webster defines it this way: a fortified place, a place of security or survival. Then I looked up stronghold in scripture and found too many verses to list here. But here are a few.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalms 27:1 NIV)
In other words, God is our Saviour, and when troubles brew up in our lives, we are to rely on Him to protect us and pull us through our struggles, that Jesus Christ alone is our place of safety, protection, and refuge, a stronghold to get us over any obstacles when we place our faith and trust in Him. Did you know that Jesus became our stronghold when He chose to lay down His life in our place? Psalms 94:22 says this. “But the Lord has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.” (ESV)
Here’s another Bible verse using the word stronghold.
“I will love You, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalms 18:1,2 NKJV)
I’ve read that nothing brings success like making God a stronghold in our lives. This kind of unconditional trust invites the life we, as God’s people, want to live—lives of peace, joy, contentment, health, prosperity, and protection.
We all have challenges in our lives, but making Jesus Christ our stronghold is very sound Biblical advice. Can you and I vow to rest in the Lord through thick and thin, to make God our stronghold?
That’s a place of eternal security I long to be. I pray that you’ll join me!
Paul Smyth
