True Shelter

Dannah Gresh: People everywhere are searching for relationships, for possessions, and experiences that will satisfy. But Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth guarantees you one thing.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You and I will never find true, lasting, deep soul satisfaction in anything or anyone other than God.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of The Quiet Place, for November 6, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

So, what are some things that make you fear? I can tell you that there are two things that get me! One is spiders, and I’m still not over one! The other used to be the dark, but I am not afraid of that anymore, thanks to a lot of prayer. Today Nancy will remind you where you can find true safety. 

This short series we’re about to hear was first recorded in 2001. That was back in the early days of Revive Our Hearts. At that time, there was plenty to be worried about. The headlines were full of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

I’m sad to say that the details of our news feed as of late haven’t sounded much different. But you know, through all of that time, the headlines have changed, but the place we go for safety never does! Let’s listen as Nancy begins this series titled“Under His Wings.”

Nancy: Yesterday morning in my personal time with the Lord, I was led to meditate on some verses in the psalms that talk about the wings of God. Have you ever thought about the wings of God? When I think of wings, I think of mother birds taking care of their little ones.

Most of the time I have a wreath on my front door at home, and during the spring it's interesting how often the birds find that wreath to be a great place to make a nest. I've had so much fun over the years watching during that season of the year as the bird not only makes the nest but then lays the eggs and then guards those eggs and sits on them and watches over them.

And then as the eggs hatch these tiny, helpless little birds, I watch that mother with her instincts to provide protection and care, taking those birds under her wing and providing for her young a place of protection and security. Those wings become a shelter and a refuge.

In fact, I heard a story recently about a hen that apparently perished in a barnyard fire. But after the rubble was cleared out, they found under that hen the baby chicks alive. The mother's wings had protected those little ones. She had laid down her own life, and those little chicks under the hen were safe and were preserved.

Now as we look into the psalms, there are a number of verses that talk to us about how the wings of God provide for us a place of safety and security and refuge. Today and tomorrow I want to look at some of those verses to just see what God's wings provide for us. I think this will be encouraging to you wherever you are as a child of God, as a young one with Him, to find security and protection and blessing under His wings. 

The first thing that I see in these verses is that the wings of God are for me and for you a place of satisfaction, and a place of refreshment when we're in the midst of a dry place. 

Psalm 63 is a psalm that was written by David when he was out in the wilderness of Judah. The early verses of that psalm tell us that he was in a dry and thirsty land where there was no water. He was in a dry, parched place. And in the midst of that dry place, he found the wings of God to be a place of satisfaction and a place of refreshing. 

Let me read, beginning in verse 3 of Psalm 63. He says to God, 

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You. 

Now remember where David is. He's in the wilderness, in a dry place where there is no water. 

But instead of focusing on the dryness and what he doesn't have, he looks heavenward. He finds something very rich that he does have—the lovingkindness of God. He says, “Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is better than life.” In other words, “If I perish out here in this wilderness, I have something that is more enduring than life itself. And he says, “I'm going to praise You by faith.”

Verse 5, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and [abundance]." Now he's not in a place of abundance; he's in a place of need and desperation. But he says, “In Your presence and in Your love, I will be satisfied as if I had plenty and more than enough”. . . "and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips."

Then verse 7, 

Because You have been my help [O God],
therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. 

He finds under the wings of God a place of satisfaction, a place of refreshment, even though it's a dry land. He goes on in verse 8 to say, 

[O God] my soul follows close behind You,
Your right hand upholds me.

You see the same thought in Psalm 36. In verses 5 and 6 of that passage, David talks about the mercy of God, the faithfulness of God, the righteousness of God, the judgments of God. And then he says in verse 7, 

How precious is your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. 

Because of God's lovingkindness and care, therefore we find our place of satisfaction and refreshment under the shadow of His wings. He goes on in verse 8, 

They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,
and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. 

In a dry and thirsty land, the presence and the wings of God provide for us a place of satisfaction, a place of abundance and refreshment and joy. Now I'm reminded as I read these passages that you and I will never find true lasting, deep, soul satisfaction in anything or anyone other than God. I think that's one of the reasons God presses us into wilderness places, to realize that we need Him, and that in Him we have everything that we need. 

The other thing these psalms say to me is that you and I can have joy and fullness, we can have abundance, even in the midst of the desert, even in a dry and thirsty land. 

It may be the desert of an unbelieving mate; it may be the desert of endless demands and questions and jabber from your three or four toddlers. That can be a desert experience some days, the physical exhaustion and weariness that comes with certain seasons of life. 

But in the midst of those deserts, as we put our trust under the wings of God and take our place under His wings, you and I find satisfaction, refreshment, abundance, and joy.

Now I see also in the psalms that the wings of God are a place of shelter and refuge from storms. That was quite a storm we had here last night. I was lying in bed listening to that wind and wondering from the sound if this could be the makings of a tornado! I was thinking about how we find refuge and safety and shelter under the wings of God.

Psalm 57 paints for us a picture of the wings of God providing us refuge. The setting of this psalm is, again, David speaking when he was fleeing from King Saul, who was a violent, insanely jealous king. 

So he cries out to the Lord, Psalm 57, verse 1, and he says, 

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me!
For my soul trusts in You;
And in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge,
Until these calamities have passed by.

I would not want to have been outside in that storm last night. I'm glad I had a shelter in the midst of that storm. And David is saying, “Lord, there's a storm passing by; there are calamities that are pouring in on my life. But I have a shelter. The shelter is the wings of God; that's a refuge. I'm going to stay in that shelter until these calamities have passed by.”

We see the same thought in Psalm 61:1–2, where David says, 

Hear my cry, O God;
Attend to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I will cry to You,
When my heart is overwhelmed."

We don't like to be in places where calamities are passing by or where our hearts are overwhelmed. 

But more often than not that's what it takes in our lives, I find, to get us to the place where we cry out to the Lord. When there are no storms, we can just go through life without ever thinking about God! But when the storms come, that's when we think, I need a refuge! I need a way to get out of this storm. I need some protection, a shelter in the midst of this storm!

So David says, 

[In the midst of this storm I will cry out to You] When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For You have been a shelter for me,
A strong tower from the enemy.
I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. (vv. 2–4)

You see what he keeps coming back to? “Lord, You have provided a shelter, a refuge for me. So what do I have to do? I have to run into that place, and then I have to trust”—as those little birds, those little chicks come under the wings of the mother, the wings of that hen, and trust, and wait on that parent to meet their needs.

A few moments ago some of you shared some of the storms, some of the challenges that you're walking through in your life. There are a number who mentioned physical challenges and health issues. Someone mentioned that a daughter's marriage is in crisis. 

Some of you are facing the challenge of an empty nest (no pun intended here). .And then some were challenges and storms even bigger than what we have mentioned. I was just reminded as we were listing these challenges, you and I have a safe place, a refuge, a shelter in the midst of the storm.

So we come to the Lord and we say, "Lord, I come to find refuge under Your wings. You are enough. You are sufficient. You are my hiding place; and in You I am safe." Let’s pray.

Thank You, Father, for Your wings, for Your protection, for Your care and compassion for your young ones. We just acknowledge this day that we need You and thank You that in You and under Your wings we find satisfaction and refreshment, that we can have abundance and joy even in the midst of our desert experiences. 

And then, thank You that in the midst of the storm there’s a place we can run; there’s a place we can hide; there’s a place we can be safe, and it’s the place under your wings. Help us to trust and not to try and figure it all out ourselves, but to know that You know best and that You care and that You are ever there to meet our needs. Thank You for Your wings! I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with a comforting word. No matter what dangers or worries you face, you can find peace and safety under the wings of God. You know, in the life of my husband Bob and I, a lot of the storms that we have faced have been in our marriage. But those storms caused us to run to the Lord.

And because we ran to Him, we have a redemption story, a testimony of His protection and safety as a result of those hard times. I know the story of another couple who has known the kinds of relational difficulties that Bob and I have had. When Nicola went through painful circumstances in her marriage, she found shelter under the wings of God.

Nicola: I knew that I have a heavenly Father who loves me very much and wants to take care of me and wants me to run to Him and cling to Him. 

Dannah: But let’s back up and start with Nicola’s story from the beginning.

Nicola: My name is Nicola, and I’m from Scotland. I was brought up in a Christian home with Christian parents and grandparents, and I have a sister. Church was a really big part of our lives. I gave my life to the Lord at the age of five. I knew that I was a sinner and that I needed to be saved. I think it was beside my bed one night with my dad that I gave my life to the Lord.

And then I think I was twelve or fourteen when I was baptized. We’re from quite a small fellowship in Scotland, so there’s a nice, lovely kind of family feel. So growing up it was a big part of my life. I made a lot of mistakes, still do, but it was such a joy to be brought up in a Christian home. 

Dannah: In 2017, someone shared an episode of Revive Our Hearts with Nicola. The series was called God’s Beautiful Design for Women.

Nicola: That was the first I’d heard of Nancy, the first I’d heard of Revive Our Hearts. I was just blown away!

Nancy (from “God’s Beautiful Design”): What is sound doctrine? Well, the world shouldn’t have a hard time looking at us and knowing whether or not we’re Christians. It should be really obvious!

Nicola: I just remember after that first episode doing a “send all” to all of my female contacts, going, “Have you heard of this Revive Our Hearts? Have you heard of Nancy?”

Nancy (from “God’s Beautiful Design”): And when they see it, it’s not our beauty, it’s not our purity. It’s the goodness and the lovingkindness of God our Savior!

Nicola: And from that point I went on a journey, and I just listened to the podcast, read the articles. So, yeah, that was my very first encounter in January 2017. In the summer of 2017, my husband and I were going through a really difficult time in our marriage. 

I had reached out to Nancy, on Instagram actually. I never expected her to reply because I’m just this random girl from Scotland. But she did. She just shared and she just pointed me to the Lord, pointed me to Jesus. She just shared so much wisdom and there was such a kindness about her, which from there has developed into a friendship with Nancy.

She has been a really great, godly counsel in my life—from all the way over here in the States to this random girl in Scotland—which is such a blessing!

Dannah: Nicola wanted to share what she’d been discovering. So for a couple years in a row she invited women from her church to watch the livestream of Revive Our Hearts conferences.

Nicola: In 2017, we watched Adorned, the livestream. In 2018, we watchedTrue Woman ’18. We got a group of ladies from various churches in our area to watch the livestream. It was after that my friends Ruthie and Suzie were like, “We need something like this here! We need a conference where women can come and hear sound teaching!” So we prayed about it, and we left it with the Lord.

Dannah: The Lord answered the desires of Nicola’s heart. She and a team held a conference in Scotland, inspired in part by what she had learned from Revive Our Hearts.

Nicola: In 2019, we had our first Women of God conference, which is kind of a mirror of True Woman,but on a much smaller scale! Our theme was based on Titus 2. It was amazing! We had 160 women together for the day. We shared the gospel with them, but we shared the message of Titus 2 as well.

In April of 2022, we had our second Women of God conference, and the theme was Beauty in Brokenness. We thought that it was such an apt theme because of everything everyone had gone through with Covid19 over the past two years. There were so many women in such broken places—whether it be in their marriage, their family, at work, an array of different situations that women were under. We felt the Lord wanted to bring us all together in our suffering. The Lord is the Light and He is the One who will bring us through if we cling to Him and turn to Him!

Dannah: Nicola was focused outward, serving other women. But she also took what she learned from these conversations and brought it home to her own marriage. Her husband had caused a lot of hurt, and God was working on his heart. But Nicola wanted to focus on what God was teaching her.

Nicola: I think I realized where my heart was wrong. I was so focused on my husband’s faults and what was going on that I didn’t really look at me. Nancy was very good at showing me that actually my heart needs to be right. It doesn’t matter what’s going on with my husband.

I needed to be right with the Lord, and I needed to turn to Him. He will give me all that I need, and He will sustain me. He will give me the strength to face each day. Through those podcasts that really became real to me, that was something I had to put into practice.

It wasn’t easy; it wasn’t easy at all. But I knew that I have a heavenly Father who loves me very much and wants to take care of me and wants me to run to Him and cling to Him. That’s definitely the podcast that has brought that to light with me.

Dannah: And then last year, Nicola and her husband came to the United States so Nicola could attend the True Woman ’22conference in person!

Announcer from conference: Take comfort. Take courage. Our God is in control! Heaven rules! (applause)

Nicola (from conference): With having watched the conferences on the livestream (it’s been such a blessing to have the livestream!), but to be here in person in that room when all those women are together singing and under teaching, it is just . . . what a privilege!

Song: Kristyn Getty

Let every kindred, every tribe on this terrestrial ball
To Him all majesty ascribe and crown Him Lord of all!

(“All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” by Edward Perronet)

Nicola (to audience at conference): It is an absolute privilege to be here, and I’m just so honored to be here! I’m praying that the Lord will open my heart and teach me and that I’ll be encouraged, and I’ll be challenged, and I’ll be convicted while I’m here. 

This afternoon while we were in a breakout room with Melissa Kruger on “How to Be More of a Discerning Woman,”(and that breakout session was really, really good) she helped me work out what discernment actually means and how to be a discerning woman. 

So I’ve taken a lot away from that. I kept scribbling and scribbling and scribbling. She was very, very good, and she has such a kind and gracious way of sharing as well.

Dannah: Friend, if you’ve been experiencing storms, Nicola is here to tell you that you can find shelter under the wings of God. She found comfort there, and you can, too. 

Nicola: We need to be in the Word; we need to be in the truth. When storms come, when there’s suffering, whatever it might be, we need to be in the Word. We need to cling to His promises because He has promised to never leave us. He has promised to never forsake us. We need to cling to that.

We know that we can trust Him. And it’s in those darkest moments if we choose to trust Him and lean on Him, there can be the sweetest of lessons in those moments, because more than anything He wants His children to run to Him and to cling to Him—knowing that whatever we may face in life, He’s our answer. He’s our hope. He’s our light!

Dannah: What a powerful story of how Nicola ran to the Lord and found comfort under His wings! We love hearing how God is working around the world through Revive Our Hearts. When you give to this ministry, you’re part of reaching women like Nicola. 

In fact, if you’ve supported Revive Our Hearts over the past several years, do you realize you’re part of Nicola’s story? She imagines what life would have been like if Revive Our Hearts hadn’t been available.

Nicola: I think I would have just been plodding along and I wouldn’t have the relationship that I have with the Lord now. Over the last five years, my love for Him has gotten so much deeper, and my relationship with the Lord is such a vital part of my life! 

I want to share that with my husband and my girls so that they know that the Lord is our light. He is our hope in the midst of whatever life will throw at us. We’re living in a really dark world, and as Christians we’re to be the light.

But in order for us to be the light, we have to be equipped. That’s why Revive Our Hearts is amazing! They have so many resources—Bible studies, podcasts, articles—you name it, they have it. 

My prayer is that women in Scotland will get into the Word, will use these resources so that their relationship with the Lord will become stronger. And we can be that light in the darkness because we need to be that light!

Dannah: I’m so grateful Nicola is sharing the light of the gospel in Scotland and that you’re sharing the light in your neighborhood! We want to help by filling you up with truth from God’s Word and providing resources to equip you!

The support of our listeners makes it all possible. When you make a gift of any amount, we’d like to thank you by sending you our exclusive Advent tabletop card set. Each card contains an encouraging quote from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and a Scripture passage to center your heart on Christ this Advent season.

It’s inspired by Nancy’s Advent devotional Born A Child and Yet A King which is available to you along with the card set for your gift of $40 or more. Visit ReviveOurHearts.com to make your gift, or call us at 1-800-569-5959, and remember to request your Advent resources.

What is the remedy that delivers us from fear? Tomorrow Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will remind us of the beauty of trusting Jesus! I hope you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is encouraging you to find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

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