The Lord Our Dwelling Place

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1).

The comfort or discomfort of our outward lives depends largely on where our bodies live; similarly, the comfort or discomfort of our inward life depends on the dwelling place of our souls.

Our dwelling place is the place where we actually live, not just a place we visit. It is our home.

All the interests of our earthly lives are tied up in our home, and we do everything we can to make it attractive and comfortable. But our souls need a comfortable dwelling place even more than our bodies do. Inward comfort is far more important than outward comfort; when the soul is full of peace and joy, our physical surroundings matter very little.

It is vital, then, that we find out exactly where our souls are living. The Lord declares that He has been our dwelling place throughout history, but the question is: Are we actually living in our dwelling place? The psalmist says of the children of Israel that “they wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them” (Psalm 107:4-5). I am afraid there are many wandering souls in the church today whom this description fits perfectly. All their Christian lives they have been wandering in a spiritual wilderness, finding no permanent home, and their souls have fainted from hunger and thirst. Yet all the while, the dwelling place of God has been standing wide open, inviting them to come in and stay forever.

Our Lord Himself urges this invitation upon us: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4). He goes on to tell us the blessed results of staying there and the sad consequences of leaving.

The truth is, our souls were made for God. He is our natural home, and we can never be at rest anywhere else. “My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Psalm 84:2). We will always hunger and faint for the courts of the Lord as long as we fail to make our home there.

God only is the creature’s home; Though rough and straight the road, Yet nothing else can satisfy The soul that longs for God.

How shall we describe this living dwelling place? David describes it when he says: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence” (2 Samuel 22:2-3). So we see that our dwelling place is also our fortress, our high tower, our rock, and our refuge. We all know what a fortress is. It is a place of safety where the weak and helpless can be hidden from the enemy and kept secure. When we are told that God is our fortress, it can only mean one thing: if we live in Him, we shall be perfectly safe from every possible enemy.

“For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock” (Psalm 27:5). “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). “In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues” (Psalm 31:20). In the “cover of God’s tent,” no enemy can find us and no troubles can reach us. Human pride and gossip find no entrance into the “shelter” of God. The “cover of His presence” is a more secure refuge than a thousand Gibraltars. I do not mean that no trials come.

They may come in abundance, but they cannot penetrate the sanctuary of the soul. We can dwell in perfect peace even in the midst of life’s fiercest storms.

But alas, how few of us know this! We might use David’s language, but to us, it is only a figure of speech with no reality. We say the words in a formal, religious tone. “Oh yes, I know the Lord is my dwelling place, and I have committed myself to His keeping, as every Christian should.

But—” and here the normal tone returns— “but I can’t forget that I am a poor, good-for-nothing person with no strength to conquer temptation. I can hardly expect to be kept in the perfect security David speaks of.” Then follows a story of fears and anxieties, exactly as if the dwelling place of God had never been heard of, and as if the soul were wandering alone and unprotected in a world of danger.

There is a psalm that I call the “Dwelling Place of God.” It is the Ninety-first Psalm, and it gives a wonderful description of what this home is. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’” (Psalm 91:1-2). Our idea of a fortress is usually a hard, stone building where one is safe but also very uncomfortable. But there are other types of fortresses that are soft, tender, and full of comfort. This psalm describes them: “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge” (Psalm 91:4), just as a mother hen covers her helpless chicks with her warm wings. The fortress of a mother’s heart—whether human, a bird, or even a tiger—is the strongest fortress the world knows, yet it is the tenderest. This is the kind of fortress the Lord is. “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom” (Isaiah 40:11).

“The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27). Wings, bosom, arms! What blessed fortresses these are! Everything enfolded by them is safe. Nature is full of such examples. Consider what one writer says of a mother tiger. When her cubs are born, a power teaches her to be gentle—a spirit she cannot resist, for it is the spirit of her Creator. It is a tiger’s instinct to resent an injury. If you were to pull her hair or strike her, she would rend you. But resenting injury is not her strongest impulse. Watch those helpless kittens playing with her. They are so weak that a careless movement of her giant paw would destroy them, but she makes no careless movement. They cause her more pain than a blow would, yet she does not return evil for evil. She strokes them with love in her eyes and licks her little tormentors.

Love transforms her groans of physical pain into sounds of delight. She moves her massive head in a way that shows the same God who told you to “turn the other cheek” created her. When she is strong enough to rise, she goes out to sacrifice herself for her own. She will starve so they may thrive. She is terrifying for the sake of her little ones, just as God is terrifying for the sake of His.

We have seen these “mother fortresses” hundreds of times and called them God-like. One would think the sight would make us fly to our refuge in God and leave all fear outside! But the trouble is, we flatly refuse to believe the Bible means such good news. Not in words, perhaps, but in practice we say, “The Lord’s arms are not as dependable as a human mother’s; the Lord’s heart is not as tender as a tiger’s; the Lord’s wings are not as protective as a mother hen’s.” We know He made these earthly fortresses, but we cannot believe He is equal to them. Having Him as our fortress does not feel half as safe or tender to us as having a mother as our fortress. And so, mothers are trusted, but God is not!

Yet look how safe the psalmist declares this divine dwelling place to be. He says we who are in this home shall be afraid of nothing—not the terror of night, nor the arrow by day, nor the pestilence in darkness, nor destruction at noonday. Thousands may fall around us, but no evil shall happen to the soul hidden in God. No plague shall come near those who have made God their “habitation.”

All the terrors that have made our religious lives so uncomfortable are provided for here. We shall be delivered from them all if we make the Lord our home. This does not mean we will have no outward trials. Plagues may attack your body or your possessions, but those things are not you. Nothing can come near the real, interior you while you are dwelling in God.

A large part of life’s pain comes from the haunting “fear of evil.” Our lives are full of “what-ifs.”

Suppose this happens, or that happens—what would we do? How could we bear it? But if we are living in the “high tower” of God, all these “what-ifs” drop out of our lives. We shall be “at ease, without dread of disaster” (Proverbs 1:33), for no threats of evil can penetrate God’s tower. Even when walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the psalmist could say, “I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4); if we are dwelling in God, we can say it too.

But you may ask how to get into this divine dwelling place. My answer is: simply move in. If a friend rented a house for us and said it was ready, and the lease was signed and legal, we wouldn’t ask how to get in—we would just pack up and move. We must do the same here. God says He is our dwelling place. The Bible contains all the necessary papers, signed and witnessed.

Our Lord invites us—actually, He commands us—to enter and stay. He is saying, “God is your home; make sure you take up your residence there. Move in.”

How do you move in? By faith. God has said He is your dwelling place; now you must say it too.

“I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’” (Psalm 91:2).

Faith takes the Word of God and asserts that it is true. Christ says, “Abide,” and we must say, “I will abide.” We make Him our “habitation” by believing He is our home and by constantly declaring it. As the poet Coleridge said: Faith is an affirmation and an act, That bids eternal truth be present fact.

We must make the eternal truth that the Lord is our dwelling place a present fact by affirming it with our faith and by adopting the thoughts and actions that come from living in God’s presence.

One of the first things we would have to do is give up worry and anxiety forever. It is unthinkable that worry could enter God’s dwelling place; when we enter, we must leave it behind.

We talk about obeying the Lord’s commands and focus on outward duties, while ignoring commands about the inward life that are a thousand times more important. “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27) is a command of our Lord that is almost universally disobeyed. Yet I doubt any other disobedience hurts His heart quite as much. I am certain that I would be far more hurt if my child mistrusted me and felt her interests were unsafe in my care than if she disobeyed me in a moment of temptation. I am convinced we don’t realise how much it wounds our Lord when His people do not feel safe with Him.

We can understand this from our own lives. Suppose a friend gave us something to keep for them, and we gave every assurance it would be safe. Then the friend went away and worried over it, expressing to others the same anxieties we express about the things we’ve given to God.

How would we feel? We would be deeply hurt. Eventually, we might say, “Since you obviously don’t trust me, you’d better take care of your things yourself.” It is amazing that God’s children dare to be anxious after committing a matter to Him; it is such a slight against His character.

Outsiders see this and think that having the Lord as a dwelling place must not mean much, otherwise we wouldn't be so troubled.

He who cares for sparrows and numbers the hairs on our heads cannot possibly fail us. He is an unbreakable fortress where no evil or enemy can enter. I hold it as an obvious truth: the moment I have really committed anything to this divine dwelling place, all anxiety should stop. While I keep things in my own care, I have reason to tremble, for they are unsafe. but in God’s care, security is absolute.

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). The only goal, then, is to “run into” this tower and stay there forever. It would be foolish to stand outside a fortress while an enemy surrounds you, crying out for safety. If I want to be safe, I must go inside.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). If a chick wants to be safe, it must run to the mother’s wings. Many people stay outside of God’s dwelling place because they feel too unworthy or weak to go in. What would we think of a chick that saw a hawk coming, heard its mother calling, but stayed outside trembling and saying, “Oh, I am such a weak, helpless little chick that I’m not worthy to go under those wings”? If the mother hen could speak, she would say, “You silly thing, it is because you are weak and helpless that I want you here. If you were a big, strong rooster able to take care of yourself, I wouldn’t need to gather you at all.” Do I need to explain the point?

But we must not only “run into” our dwelling place. “Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings!” (Psalm 61:4). We must do the same. Staying in His tent forever is, I admit, sometimes very hard. It is relatively easy to take a step of faith, but much harder to stay in that place. Many people run into God’s fortress on Sunday and come out again as soon as Monday morning arrives. Some run into it when they kneel for evening prayers and come out five minutes later when they get into bed. This is total foolishness. You wouldn’t imagine a refugee running into a fortress one day and running back out to the enemy the next.

We would think they had lost their mind. But isn't it even more foolish for the soul? Are our enemies less active on Monday? Are we better able to handle them while sleeping than while praying?

The question is: Do we want to just visit God, or do we want to live there? Do we want to take refuge today and be exposed to enemies tomorrow? No one would choose that deliberately, but too many drift into it. Staying in Christ is entirely a matter of faith, but we fail to realise this. We think our intense struggles or hard work are the main part of it; when these fade, our faith weakens. But the Christian life is lived by faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. It is useless to waste time on our own efforts that achieve nothing.

We must put our willpower and energy into our faith. We must be determined to move into God’s dwelling place and stay there, regardless of temptations to doubt or feel discouraged.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). “Abiding” and “trusting” are effectively synonyms; they mean the same thing.

While I trust the Lord, I am staying in Him. If I trust Him consistently, I am staying in Him consistently. If I trust Him only now and then, I am running in and out. I used to think there was a mystery to “abiding,” but I see now it just means trusting Him fully. Once you understand this, it is the simplest thing in the world. We sometimes say of two people that they “live in each other’s hearts.” This just means they have perfect love and confidence in each other, and doubt is impossible. If my trust in the Lord’s fortress is absolute, I am abiding in that fortress. That is the whole story.

The practical thing to do, therefore, since God is declared to be our fortress and our high tower, is to put ourselves and all our interests into this divine dwelling place by a definite act of surrender and faith, and then dismiss all care or anxiety about them from our minds. Since the Lord is our dwelling place, nothing committed to His care can possibly come to any harm. As long as we believe this, our affairs remain in His care; the moment we begin to doubt, we take our affairs back into our own hands, and they are no longer in the divine fortress.

Things cannot be in two places at once. If they are in our own care, they cannot be in God’s care; and if they are in God’s care, they cannot be in our own. This is as clear as daylight, yet for want of a little common sense, people often get mixed up over it. They try to put their affairs into God’s fortress while keeping them in their own at the same time, and then wonder why they are not taken care of. This is foolish. Either trust the Lord completely, or trust yourself completely; but do not try to mix the two, for they will not mix.

It will help you practically if you put your trust into words. Say definitely, “God is my dwelling place, and I am going to stay in Him forever. It is all settled; I am in this divine home, I am safe here, and I am not going to move out again.” You must meet every assault of doubt and discouragement with the simple assertion that you are there and that you know you will not be put to shame. Let others do as they may, but you must declare that you, at least, are going to stay in your divine dwelling place forever. Having taken this stand, you must utterly refuse to reconsider the matter. It is settled; there is nothing more to be said.

By all this, I do not mean that we should stay in bed and let things go. I am talking about the inward aspect of our affairs, not the outward. Outwardly, we may have to be very active and careful, but it must all come from the inward basis of a soul that has hidden itself and its interests in God, and is therefore “anxious for nothing” (Philippians 4:6) in the beautiful Bible sense of having no worried thoughts. To be without inward care is the surest foundation for successful outward care. The soul hidden in God is the soul that can triumphantly bear earth’s greatest trials and conquer its strongest foes.

There is one point I must mention. When we move into a new house, we do not just move in ourselves; we take all our belongings and, above all, our family. No one would be so foolish as to leave someone they loved outside. Yet I am afraid some of God’s children move into His dwelling place themselves but, through a lack of faith, leave those they love best outside—often their children. We would be horrified at a father who fled into a fortress for safety during danger but left his children outside; yet many Christians do this very thing. Every anxious thought we have about our children proves we have not really taken them with us into the dwelling place of God.

If we trust for ourselves, we must trust for our loved ones too. God is more their Father than any earthly father is, and if they are dear to us, they are far dearer to Him. We cannot do anything better for them than to trust them to His care, and hardly anything worse than trying to keep them in our own. I knew a mother who trusted peacefully for her own salvation but was racked with anxiety about her sons, who seemed indifferent to religion. One evening, she heard about putting loved ones into the fortress of God by faith. She saw how inconsistent it was to hide herself in God while leaving her sons outside.

At once, her faith took them into the fortress with her. She abandoned them to God’s care so completely that her anxiety vanished. She told me she felt her sons were God’s sons now—no longer hers—and that He loved them better and would care for them more wisely than she ever could. She stayed ready to do whatever the Lord suggested for them, but she was content to leave the matter in His hands. She went home and told her sons, “I’ve been so worried about you and have probably annoyed you with my preaching. But I have learned to trust. I have put you into the fortress of God and left you in His care. He will save you in His own way. My anxieties are over.”

A year later, she told me with joy, “Rejoice with me! My boys have been safe in God's fortress ever since, and all of them are good Christians today.”

The conclusion is simple: move into your dwelling place in God and take everything you own and everyone you love with you. Hide yourself in Him, away from yourself and others, and lose sight of everything outside of Him—except as you see it through His eyes. God’s eyes are the only windows in His house; seen through them, everything looks different. We shall see trials as blessings and enemies as friends in disguise. We shall be calm in the face of life’s worries. “My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:18).