2 Chronicles 22

And once again, we find ourselves back to a familiar story from the time of the kings in Israel: "When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the whole royal family of the house of Judah. But Jehosheba... took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes who were about to be murdered and put him and his nurse in a bedroom... [Jehosheba] hid the child from Athaliah so she could not kill him. He remained hidden with them at the temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled the land." (vs 10-12)

He remained hidden with them at the temple of God. I thought this was a beautiful little nugget in the midst of a horrendous story. The "queen mother" has gone berserk, killing everyone in her whole family, but one of the young princes was stolen away and hidden in the temple, his life spared.

Do you ever feel like the world is going berserk? Certainly it feels that way when a crisis comes into your life. But even if you’re not in the midst of a personal crisis at the moment, what is happening to our world? In the last several weeks and months, there has been crazy weather disasters, crippling fears of worldwide economic meltdown, and random bursts of violence. It seems like everywhere you look, things are in upheaval and chaos.

That’s why I love that the story of Joash reminds us that God is a safe place. When the world is falling apart around us, when sin is threatening to tear us to bits, we can flee to the shelter of the Almighty. We can hide ourselves in Him and find peace and security—when there is precious little peace and security to be found.

What does "hiding ourselves in Him" mean? To me, it means that we know and understand His character of love well enough to know that whatever comes to us in this life is okay. He knows what He is doing, and He has promised to work in all circumstances of our lives to bring blessing to us and those around us.

So we don’t have to figure out all the crazy Athaliahs of the world. We don’t have to try to come up with solutions to the chaos and craziness. Instead, we can flee to God. We can rest in Him, our safe place. We can trust Him to do just what is right in His own time and hide ourselves in Him for as long as it takes.