"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will Abide/rest in the shadow of the Almighty." Psalm 91:1

As I was talking with God about this verse this morning, asking Him about what it truly means to be dwelling in Him, revelation hit me. I have been reading torch and the sword recently and have become so aware that I have spent too long looking at the torch. His presence, everything that I had a few weeks/months ago with Him have become slightly more heavy as I have made my dwelling more and more in the memory and experiences of God. I run to catch Him up, I call out to Him to deliver me from myself, from my pride and fear and all that plagues me and I asked Him again about this verse because I know that I know that I know that if I were to understand it and to live in it, I would not be in fear, I would not be proud, I would not be troubled and I would not be living in the semi-permanent state of panic attack I still currently remain in both night and day.

The Lord showed me the difference between a dwelling and abiding. Wow. A dwelling is Home. Its that wonderful word that means the place where you walk in, you kick off your shoes, know where things are, there is familiarity, relationship, BELONGING, comfort, intimacy, warmth, security, protection. I see a lounge in a warm fire-lit house where we have run as children and curled up at daddy’s feet or in His lap.

To dwell somewhere however, is to have a base, that is where you come back to, it is where you belong, it is where you move from, it is where you can always go to get away from everything. But it is not where we stay 24/7. This is a new revelation for me and if I am wrong, thats totally fine but hear me out. We do not stay in our dwelling places all the time, we have to walk into the stormy dark world sometimes, or the bright shiny daylight one, either way, we have to go, we walk into our workplaces, walk into our streets and churches and places of community. Just because we walk out of our dwelling, our house, does not mean we no longer belong there, in fact it defines us in many ways, it is just that if we remained there, we would not be interacting and walking life in its fullness. So heres some abiding.

Abiding under the shadow of the Almighty is such a moveable description. The shadow of a fortress or a rock or something is so very sold and static whereas a shadow moves wherever the owner of the shadow moves, it is far from a static image but one of walking and moving and living. Therefore, the promise is such. If we will take the time to go home, to spend time with daddy in our familiarity or setting, in secret place with him, curl up by the fire, talk to him about stuff. If we will not be so busy that we sleep from couch to couch and never see our house one Sunday from the next, but instead go home and share evening meals with our father, love on him and allow him the time to love on us and impart his fatherly wisdom and tenderheartedness to us, then we have a promise...

...when we walk out of that door into the world, we will abide, we will live, under His shadow. Where He walks, we shall walk, where He is, we shall be. Our identity will remain hidden in Him, our security will go with us, He will not be far away but will cover us and be everything that we find in our dwelling place as we walk where He has asked us to go.

If we will dwell, we will abide.