Strength and Safety, Part 2

God has called us to a place of Strength and Safety. Even though there is much abuse in this world that undermines this, God's will is to set us securely on high. He says so several places in His Word.
David speaks specifically about God bringing him out of destruction and into a place of Strength and Safety.

Psalm 40:1 I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me, and heard my cry.
vs 2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay (mud of mire); And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
3 And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear, And will trust in the Lord.

It is out of the place of Strength and Safety that we are to function and operate. And it is in the place of Strength and Safety that we are best able to heal. It is very difficult for an individual to heal if they are still being wounded. It is also very difficult for a person to heal if they are not allowed to deal with the wounds. If they are not in a safe place where they can be honest about hurt and must always keep them under the cover of a 'holy' or 'perfect' facade then they cannot heal.
And if they feel that God requires them to keep their wounds buried, there is not hope for their healing at all.
Any teaching that refuses to deal with the wounding of the heart is a destructive teaching and opposed to the will of God.
God wants our hearts, all of our hearts, including aches, pains, and traumas. And He can be trusted with it even if no one else can.

Here is another verse that deals with God's heart concerning the broken, wounded, and captive. It is from Isaiah 61 and is what Jesus read in the temple at the start of His ministry declaring His heart for all people, male and female, for all time.

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives, And freedom to prisoners;
Vs 2 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn,
Vs 3 To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of the spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, plantings of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

God wants to bring us to the place of Strength and Safety, like mighty oaks, planted and secure, that will not be moved. The following also speaks of what God wants for those who belong to Him.

Psalm 1:3 And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season, And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.

There are forces at work to keep this from happening both within and outside the church. And much of those forces are so 'in your face' it is easy to lose sight of God's heart on the matter.

There are more verse concerning this, and some specifically dealing with God's heart towards the feminine. But this has gotten long and we're not done dealing with examples like the elderly black woman in the last post who was able to act graciously from her place of strength. We will not be able to get to those in this post due to length. It will have to wait until the next one.