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“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” - Psalm 46:1-3
There are seasons in life when everything feels shaky—when it seems like the ground under your feet isn’t holding steady anymore. You know that sense of instability when something you counted on crumbles: a friendship falls apart, the job disappears, your health shifts overnight, or grief blindsides you out of nowhere. In times like that, it’s easy to feel completely on your own, like God’s wandered off and left you to figure it out.
The psalmist describes a world falling apart: mountains tumbling, waters roaring, the earth giving way. It’s poetic, but it’s also deeply personal. When life feels chaotic, it does feel like the world is caving in. What’s striking, though, is the declaration right before that imagery—“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The writer doesn’t say God was or will be our help. He says God is—right now, right in the middle of the train wreck you face.
The struggle is that we often don’t feel it. We can know in our heads that God is near, yet our hearts tell a different story. Pain has a way of locking us in a room away from everyone else. When prayers seem to go unanswered or the silence stretches too long, it’s natural to wonder:
“If God is really with me, why do I feel so alone?”
That’s the tension Psalm 46 gently invites us to live in—the space between our feelings and God’s truth. Our emotions can make it seem like God’s gone quiet, but the reality is that He’s actually right beside us, steady and sure, waiting for us to rest in His strength. We may not always sense His presence, but that doesn’t mean He’s absent.
Pastor Tony Evans frequently teaches that “seeing is believing” is backward. When it comes to the way God does business with us, we need to embrace the idea that believing is seeing! That’s what Jesus called Peter to do when he called him out onto the water for a short walk. For a moment, Peter was filled with belief that he could do whatever Jesus told him to do. Then, what he saw caused him to doubt. That’s how quick we can go from belief to disbelief.
There’s a quiet gift in realizing that God’s help isn’t just distant or delayed. He’s described as “a very present help”—that means His presence is immediate, personal, right up close. It’s not a vague comfort, but a living, active one. When everything else shakes, His closeness doesn’t.
Maybe your life feels like it’s collapsing, and you don’t see how to hold it together. You pray, but heaven seems silent. You still show up at church or open your Bible, but it feels like you’re just going through the motions. That’s okay. God isn’t waiting for your feelings to catch up before He starts being present. He’s already there—holding you, strengthening you, listening even when your prayers come out broken or wordless.
So, even when the world feels unstable, even when your inner life feels like an earthquake, you can whisper those opening words: “God is my refuge and strength.” Say it as a reminder to yourself, not because everything suddenly feels okay, but because it’s true.
The psalm ends later with another invitation: “Be still, and know that I am God.” That doesn’t mean pretending the trouble isn’t real. It means stilling your heart enough to remember who’s holding you together when everything else shakes apart.
God’s presence doesn’t promise the storm will end quickly, but it does promise you’ll never face it alone. He’s with you now—steady, strong, and unmovable—even when you can’t sense Him. And that’s enough.