When Joshua and the Israelites had conquered the land for seven years, they set up the place of worship to God at Shiloh. It had been a crazy time, watching miracles of waters parted, major enemies defeated by the power of God, and some pretty rough losses as well when they didn’t do things as God had directed. Shiloh means whole, sound, quiet, secure, health or abundance. This sounds like a good place to me, especially to get away and just have time with the God who was leading their nation.
I often want this quiet place to get away, and sometimes I get time for it. But what I fail to realize when I focus on a place is that Jesus is our Shiloh now, and I can go anytime I want as He lives within me. I want the place of worship to be external, and sometimes it is. But no one can take that access from me, even if a church is destroyed, circumstances have limited us, or we feel as though we are imprisoned.
Edith Eger wrote about her time in a concentration camp during World War 2 in her book The Choice. What she credits with getting her through this time of horror was something her mother told her before they were imprisoned: “Just remember, no one can take away from you what you've put in your own mind.” She kept pushing into the internal because she couldn’t find freedom in the external.
In many cultures, we focus on changing the externals in order to feel free. Mike Wells used to talk about how in other countries where a person is born into a job, a class and a marriage without any real choices in these options, a person must push into spiritual things because it’s the only place they have freedom. But perhaps in this way they are ahead of our culture—we put so much energy into “becoming” while ignoring who we have already been made to be, and who we house in terms of the indwelling life of Christ.
So often we feel we must change the circumstances in order to find real freedom. But if that is true, freedom can be taken from us at every turn. I also know many people who have money, power, family, status, health, beauty and all of it. They have not found freedom in those additions, though, and must come to realize their identity is not found in any of it.
What if I don’t have to run away from my situation to find my hiding place? What if God is my hiding place and He now tabernacles in me?
I think we also believe we need to go a specific place in order to have this kind of access. But we can come boldly before the throne of grace ANYTIME. I think it becomes a training of sorts to get ourselves to access the resources we have. We must tell ourselves repeatedly that we can list the Life of Christ as our resource, even when it’s the only one we feel we have.
I love the illustration of Mike’s (I learned a lot from that guy!) where he spoke of a man who was adding up his resources, putting zeros in every column from strength to money to success. He felt he had nothing at all. But Mike told him to put a one in front of all those zeroes because the Life of Christ comes first, and that changes the formula dramatically. We go from zero to one million—the resource level changes completely!
So, no matter what you face today, come to the hiding place, the Shiloh, you have within, for no one can steal that from you. And as you rest there in the presence of Jesus, remind yourself of all He brings to the equation, especially in your weakness. Nothing is too big, and you are free even when your external world seems imprisoned.
Lord, you are my secret hiding place, protecting me from these troubles, surrounding me with songs of gladness! Your joyous shouts of rescue release my breakthrough. Pause in his presence. Psalm 32:7