Trusting Our Unchanging God

The episode contains portions from the following programs:

"Anchored to the Word"

"Are You in Trouble?"

"When You Are Battered by Fear"

---------------------

Dannah Gresh: If life’s been hard lately, you need to hear what I’m about to say. Ever heard the saying, “Solid as the rock of Gibraltar?” It’s a saying meant to declare that something or someone is undoubtedly safe . . . even when the waves are raging. 

The saying is a reference to this famous and magnificent rock mountain at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea where the waves, well, they’re wild enough for surfers . . . on a good day, anyway. The rock’s been there for thousands of years and hasn’t really changed much, which I suppose is why it’s sometimes used by armies in times of great war as a fortress.

Now, think about a sand dune—one that’s constantly shifting. It doesn’t take wild waves, just maybe the regular influence of wind and rain to change the shape of the sand.

If you’re in a storm, which would you rather hold onto, the rock of Gibraltar or a sand dune? Hmm, I think that’s pretty obvious!

You know, I think that difference is a lot like our ever-changing world and the unfailing stability of Jesus Christ—our mighty fortress. 

Song: “A Mighty Fortress” 

A mighty fortress is our God,
A sacred refuge is Your name.¹

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh, and that’s Christy Nockles with "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." Oh, I love that song!

Today, I want to explore the theme of stability—something I need a little of on hard days . . . even more of for tough years. I want you to go away from our time together with an absolute conviction that God is your fortress! 

What keeps you going when it seems like the bottom has fallen out of your life? Where do we find stability?

Psalm 62:1–2 is a good place to start finding an answer. It reads:

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
   from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
   my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. 

It doesn’t say we won’t be shaken. It says we won’t be “greatly” shaken when we hold on to Christ, our rock!

Not too long ago some of my friends at a True Woman conference talked about that—feeling shaken but realizing they had THE great Rock to cling to. I want you to hear what they said. We’ll hear from Asheritah Ciuciu, Juli Slattery, Amanda Kassian, Shannon Popkin, and Kelly Needham talking about the unchanging fortress of Jesus Christ. Let’s listen.

Asheritah Ciuciu: He is my refuge, and He is my strength. And no matter what life brings, when we rest on the Rock that is Jesus Christ, we are safe and secure. The waves might crash. The storms might come. In all this unknown . . . you can’t anticipate the diagnosis, the job loss, the loved one walking away. We don’t know what will come, but God knows. He invites us to build our life on the solid Rock because He will never be shaken. So when we rest in Him, we will not be shaken.

Juli Slattery: I think the vision that God has really given me over the years with this is the idea of being an instrument-rated pilot. Which, if you know aviation, it means that you can trust the instrument panels, and you’re not going to be thrown off by what you see out the windows. 

I think in our day and age, there are so many women who are looking out the windows. They are looking inward at what they feel, what people are saying, what culture is doing, and they don’t trust the instrument of God's Word. 

And so for me, it’s that God never changes. His Word never changes. He’s never surprised. As much as we might be bumping around in turbulence, we can trust Him. We can trust by His Spirit as He teaches us, and He draws us to Himself.

Amanda Kassian: I named my youngest daughter Josephine Hope. And the name Josephine means “God increases.” She’s a COVID baby, so at the time, I was really struggling with hope and where our security lies because the world was changing so fast and people were turning on each other. I wanted a reminder of God’s Word and who He is. So her name is Josephine Hope, which means “God increases hope.”

And as I age, as my years come to an end—and it could come to an end tomorrow—God is further increasing my hope as I come to know Him more. That hope is an anchor for me. It is a hope that I don’t have to worry about tomorrow.

When I think of Peter stepping out of the boat, when he fixed his eyes on Christ, his anchor, he could walk on water. But when he looked to the right or to the left, that’s when he sank.

So for me, I want to fix my eyes on Christ who is the anchor of my soul so that I do not sink. He keeps me afloat.

Shannon Popkin: There is this night when the disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee. Jesus has told them to cross. They’re following His instructions. And they find themselves in the middle of a storm, like, it’s a bad storm. They’re afraid that they’re going to lose their lives. They have been out there battling. It says the wind and the waves were against them, and they are feeling completely undone. They’re afraid they’re going to die. And between four and six in the morning—the third watch of the night—Mark tells us that Jesus came walking on the water, and He meant to pass by them.

Now, I thought that was interesting because when I’m in the dark night of the soul, the chaos of a storm, I don’t want Jesus to pass by me. I want Him to come to me. I want Him to stop the storm. I want Him to be with me in the storm. And yet, Jesus meant to pass by them. What was He thinking?

This was the big reveal in Matthew’s telling of the story. At the end of the story, the disciples say, “Surely He is the Son of God.”

They’re knowing for the first time that, yes, everything is insecure in our lives. And yet, we shouldn’t picture Jesus, like, slogging through the storm, trying to get to them. Because if He’s not affected by gravity, truly He’s not affected by the storm.

This is what Jesus was revealing: He is not affected by the storms in our lives. He isn’t affected by the chaos. None of it affects Him. He is above the storms. He is standing, and He wants us to see that in the middle of our storms. He’s our anchor. He’s the anchor that we can look to in the middle of our storms. He’s the one that will not be defeated. He will rise above anything that we are facing.

And so, in our distress, in our frustration, Jesus wants us to see . . . We might be out of control, our whole world may be out of control, but Jesus is not out of control. Jesus is in control. And so, since He is in control, that means I don’t have to be.

Kelly Needham: To take seasons of change, to take hurts and conflict and problems that feel too big to solve in my own heart, to take those to the Lord and see my own heart transform from a place of turmoil to peace, that is so affirming to me that God is real. He can change me. He can change my disposition. He can produce peace in my heart amidst a lot of moving things that are unstable and uncertain.

Also, starting to see Him answer prayers that I’m praying for. Not all of the things that have been laid before His feet these past twelve months are answered, but there are some that have been. There’s slow transformation in some areas and relationships and things that I’ve been praying for that I see. And seeing those little expressions of God at work is just a reminder that He is real. He is changing me, first of all, but I see Him transforming others around me.

It’s not always the circumstances that I want changed that get changed. It’s usually heart postures that are getting changed and contentment growing rather than circumstances changing. But again, to me that is more freeing because now my hope is tied not to circumstances changing but to a Person who can actually interject into a difficult circumstance and provide the things that we need despite the circumstance changing. It’s really liberating.

Song: "He Will Hold Me Fast"

He will hold me fast, 
He will hold me fast, 
For my Savior loves me so,
He will hold me fast.² 

Dannah: Amen! Christ is our unchanging Rock. I hope that truth brings you comfort when you see the world around you shaking and changing day by day. That was Kelly Needham, along with other speakers at our True Woman conference a few years ago.

I want to tell you about a time I felt shaken, but God used that song by Christy Nockels, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” to remind me I didn’t have to stay that way.”

I was at the hospital. My daughter-in-law had just given birth to twins who seemed to be doing well though they were very premature. I was celebrating in the family lounge, showing off photos, when I got a text from my son. “Come quickly! Something’s happening.” I scrubbed in and got into the NICU as fast as I could. In one corner I saw my Robby and Aleigha holding each other and weeping. In another, I saw a team of doctors frantically working on our sweet little three pound Addie. Her lung had collapsed. 

Now, the doctors did mend her. But after they finished, they pulled us all together, and, well, their faces told us the news wasn’t good. Nothing was sure.

I felt shaken. After a while, I was able to pull away to the cafeteria. I found a corner and soaked in Christy’s beautiful version of this magnificent hymn. It was this little bridge that stabilized me that day:

And we will keep our eyes on you.
We will keep our eyes on you. 
So we can set our hearts on you.
Lord, we will set our hearts on you. 
A mighty fortress in our God!¹

I’m telling you, I rose from that chair, walked back into the NICU, and I was unshakable! Why? Because I put my eyes on Jesus. We’ve got to keep our eyes on Him! Not the doctor’s diagnosis. Not the fear around us. Jesus. Fix your eyes on Christ, my friend. God’s kingdom is unshakable! And that means that if you’re God’s child, a part of His kingdom, you’re unshakable too.

Now, you may have noticed that so far I’ve paired something with the truth that God is unchanging and unshakable. What’s that? Yep—trouble. Trials. Hard times.

Most of us don’t really have a hard time trusting God when things are going well—at least, we don’t think we do. It’s when your life is upended that you realize you have no control and you are totally dependent on Him! More than ever, that’s when you need to trust that He is just the same now as He was in the Bible, as He always has been.

Psalm 46, verse 1, acknowledges that. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. It says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, talking about that verse. She starts out by reminding us of the inevitable reality of trouble in our lives.

Nancy: It is our troubles that actually point us to the other reality, apart from which we could not survive the troubles we face. And what is that other reality? It is the first word of the verse—God. Elohim.

The all-powerful God. In the beginning, God, Elohim, created the heavens and the earth. He is the one who created and controls all the forces of nature. Nothing in this world happens by chance or outside of His knowledge and His control. He is the sustainer of this world. By Him all things hold together, and that includes us. 

Elohim! God! He is the one who is our refuge, our strength in the midst of trouble. He is the starting point. He is a fixed reference point in a world of shifting circumstances. He is more real than any circumstance, than any trouble that may touch your life or mine this day, or in the days to come. 

Notice the order in which these two realities are brought up. Which one comes up first? God. The point of this psalm, I think, is to say, "Start with God." We tend to start with our troubles. Ask somebody how they are doing. Ask me how I’m doing over these last several weeks, and I’ll tell you about my troubles. That is where we tend to start—with our circumstances, with this challenge, with this pressure, with this problem. But this passage says, “Start with God.” 

"God is our refuge, our strength, a very present help in trouble." He is what we need in trouble. We often think of all the other things we need or wish we had: a solution, relief, someone to sympathize with us. But this passage says, "No, turn to Him. He is our refuge."

Psalm 2 puts it this way. “Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (v. 12). Some of your translations say, “Blessed are all who put their trust in him.” That is what you do with a refuge. You run to it and you put your trust in that place of refuge.

Well, God is our refuge and our strength. He is a source of mental or emotional support when we need it—and that is all the time. We are weak and helpless, and we need His strength. He provides divine enabling in our weakness. He is the one who helps keep us strong. 

Now I should note that sometimes God shields and protects from trouble. But sometimes He ordains that we should go through the storm, and then He provides strength to endure the storm. Remember what He said to Paul when Paul cried out to be delivered from his affliction? God said, “My grace is sufficient for you." My grace is enough. "For my power [my strength] is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

When do we find out our weakness? It is when we are in trouble, right? Our weakness showcases His power. It provides an opportunity for the display of His strength. But here is an important reminder. God only proves to be a refuge for those who actually put their trust in Him. His strength is experienced by those who recognize and acknowledge their weakness and their need.

Now in verse 1 where it says “a very present help,” some of your Bibles will have a little note in the margin that says, “He is a well-proved help,” and that is another rendering of this verse. Very present, well-proved. You know what that says to me as I’ve been meditating on it? He’s got a perfect track record. He’s helped others who have been in trouble. He’s helped me in the past when I’ve been in trouble. If you need to go back and recount the times when you’ve seen God be a help to you or to others in trouble, He is well-proved, and therefore there is no reason to fear that He will fail to help me now. He is well-proved. 

Verse 2 talks about the earth giving way. This is a picture of extreme upheaval. We think of the earth as being as solid as it gets, usually. Until it starts shaking. But, that’s not an everyday occurrence. You usually think that if there is anything solid in the world, it's the ground—terra firma, firm ground, the ground you're standing on.

The point is nothing on this earth, including the earth itself, is secure. Everything is unstable and uncertain—everything. There will be earthquakes. There will be troubles. We saw that is a plural word in the first verse. Things that we thought were steady, unshakable, and secure can and will change. They will give way. They will be moved.

If the earth can give way, then anything give can way. Right?

We can read this on a personal level. You think about jobs and income and investments and possessions, friends, marriage, children, your house, the weather. All these things can give way. They can change in a moment. They can collapse. They can be done away with. Fires, lay-offs, economic collapse, natural disasters, terminal illness, prodigal children. Some of you have kids who have gone off the deep end. You cry yourself to bed at night thinking, What happened here? Calamities, chaos. We're talking here pictured by these surging waters any kind of stress or trouble.

Not only on the personal level but more broadly with governments and rulers and political parties as they rise and fall—the surging waters! The map today of the world looks entirely different in many parts of the world than it did when I was growing up—names of countries that I wouldn't even recognize. The changes in those names is reflective of coups and revolutions and new governments coming into power.

You see the changes in moral values that once were widely held but now are being just abandoned, tossed out. You look at all of this and it is unsettling; it's frightening.

Anything can and will change. We all come to points in our lives when the things we thought were most sure and enduring prove not to be so sure and enduring. It's a reminder that we will never find security in any earthly refuge. Any person, any thing that we trust in, is subject to change.

Mountains and earth—we think of these things being solid and unshakable. The fact is, only God is unshakable. Only He is completely reliable, faithfully, and trustworthy. You see, troubles cause our hearts to become detached from this earth, when we realize there is nothing stable here.

Our hearts are attached to this earth until troubles come and shake us up. When they shake us up, our hearts get detached from this earth and more attached to God and heaven and eternal, unshakable realities. That is part of the point of troubles.

If you've been putting your trust in things and people that can be taken away from you and can be moved, then you're insecure. You're not going to be secure.

Now, the psalm goes on to say that because "God is our refuge, our strength, and a very present help in trouble . . . therefore we will not fear.” Because we have a certain, sure, unshakable reality, even when everything else around us is going nuts, “Therefore we will not fear.”

Now, our lack of fear is not based on what is going on around us, because the things going on around us can be dreadfully fearful. It's based on that unshakable, sure foundation of who God is.

Psalm 27:1 says it this way, “The Lord is the stronghold [or the strength] of my life; of whom or what shall I be afraid?” If your life is anchored in Him, there is no reason for fear.

You see,the antidote to fear in a terrifying world is not trying to arrange our lives to be free from trauma and trouble. The antidote to fear is anchoring our lives on the character of God.

Those who have built their lives on the foundation of this present world will one day suffer irreparable loss as they discover that all they have lived for was temporary, shifting, and vulnerable.

Those who have placed their confidence in Christ, the Solid Rock, have nothing to fear, for that rock will never be moved, but will support them surely and steadfastly forever.

Listen, it makes all the difference for time and eternity where you place your trust. Can you say that Christ is your only hope, the Solid Rock on which you have based your life? 

Song: “The Solid Rock” 

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand. ³

Dannah: All other ground is sinking sand! That’s a hymn by Edward Mote, “The Solid Rock.” Before that, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth asked some questions that I hope will cause you to examine your own heart.

Are you confident about where your trust lies? When your life is shaken, will you be shaken with it, or will you cling to Jesus, your Rock and refuge? Nothing and no one else can compare to Him.

There are so many other ways—in fact, every other way—that God is greater than everyone else. That’s what Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth writes about in her newest book, Incomparable: 50 Days with Jesus. It has fifty short readings that will help you to consider the work and words of Christ. You’ll think about His preexistence, His atoning work, His suffering, His promised second coming, and more.

When you give a gift right now to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts, we want to say thank you by sending you that book! And Nancy just started a series on our daily program that’s related to that book. So, I think you’ll want to get the book Incomparable and follow along.

You can give a gift by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. Don’t forget to ask for the book Incomparable when you get in touch!

What do you do when you’re tempted to sin? Is your first response to run to the Word of God? We’ll talk about that next week. Join us for that!

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

¹ Christy Nockels, “A Mighty Fortress,” Life Light Up ℗ 2009 Sparrow Records/sixstepsrecords.

² Keith and Kristyn Getty, "He Will Hold Me Fast," Facing a Task Unfinished (Deluxe Edition) ℗ 2016 Getty Music Label, LLC.

³ Grace Community Church, “The Solid Rock,” Waves of Grace ℗ 2008 Grace Community Church.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.