Go, my people! Enter your inner rooms! Close your doors behind you! Hide for a little while, until his angry judgment is over! Isaiah 26:20 (NETFull)
I watched a Nigerian weaverbird gather leaf strands from a palm tree. Over, under, over, under, the yellow marvel knit the strips into his nest. At the bottom of the six inch globe was a small entry. A hundred nests dangled like Christmas tree ornaments and kept birdie families snug against the storms and predators outside.
God tells his people to hide in their rooms from his wrath against the world. This is not an injunction to become a recluse from the lost. It’s a warning to keep our hearts protected for our true love.
Earthly life threatens to consume me, both its lures and its pain. Nature’s beauty, agonizing diseases, technology, relationships, politics, wars, births—there is so much to digest.
Jesus says, “Let me be your nest, your place of safety away from the mayhem swirling around you. Withdraw your heart into friendship with me while I deal with everything on the outside.”
I’m invited into a quiet yet passionate interior life with Jesus. By faith, I must let Jesus weave a hushed sanctuary, 360 degrees around me, against anything this life can dish out, good or bad. Each new event is an occasion to curl up next to Jesus, rest in his peace and grow in the fullness of love.
So much of what is said or goes on around me is never meant to come inside the nest. I must trust Jesus to whisper those few things I need in order to serve him and thrive. All the rest is marked to be destroyed by the wrath of God, so leave it outside.
Prayer: Jesus, hide my heart from the uproar of the world.