It's good to think more deeply about the mercies of God in times of crisis. To help guide us in this effort, we'll consider Paul David Tripp's collection of meditations from Psalm 27 called "A Shelter in the Time of Storm." You can get your own copy on Amazon here.

When evildoers assail me,
to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
it is they who stumble and fall.

Psalm 27:2

As Paul closes out his first letter to the Corinthians, he issues a burst of short commands to God’s people. “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” Several translations render that first phrase “Be on the alert.”

This meditation is a poem about that same theme. There will come a time when we can rest completely in the age of Christ’s consummated victory. That time is not now. Now is the time when sin lies crouching outside the door. Now is the time when Satan is seeking to devour. Now is the time when temptation ever present in the physical and virtual worlds. Now is not the time to let down our guard. Now is the time to be watchful.

Questions to Consider

The questions are Tripp's. I included my answers in case they're helpful to read.

1. Do you tend to forget that, this side of eternity, there is a great spiritual war being fought inside and outside of you? Do you forget it in your marriage or in your parenting? Do you forget it in friendship, in work, in material things?

- Yes. Yes, and yes. Yes, yes, and yes.

2. What evidence in your life indicates that you are living with a peacetime mentality rather than with a preparedness for spiritual conflict.

- How much my thinking and intentionality changes in times of obvious conflict. If I were truly prepared for spiritual conflict I'd be doing even in peacetime the things that I so quickly recognize are necessary when the conflict comes.