Your Real Zip Code

Where is the best place to live in the entire world?  Periodically, national magazines will rate the various cities around the world for their livability—based on the city’s beauty, environmental practices, economic health, the crime rate, the number of parks, the average lifespan of the inhabitants, and so on.

There are some amazing communities in this world, and I believe I live in one of them, but the very best place to live anywhere, bar none, is squarely in the hands of Almighty God.  If you live there, by saving faith and daily obedience, the physical address of your residence doesn’t really matter.  The crime rate and economic health are non-factors.  The natural beauty and livability quotient are inconsequential.  Even the most hostile environment can be a great place to live when the Lord “is a shield about you.” (Psalm 3:3)

David passionately loved the city of Jerusalem.  In fact, it became known as the City of David.  But there came a time when he had to flee the city, running for his life because of the uprising of his son, Absalom.  Absalom wanted to assassinate his father, and he had plenty of support among the religious community, the military, and the common citizens—the very people for whom King David had provided such a good life.  But they had turned on David, forcing the king to run for his life, keeping barely just a step ahead of death and with absolutely no prospects of ever regaining his throne and returning to his beloved city.

Yet as David fled Jerusalem he found an even better place, an oasis from the chaos of the coup—he found refuge in the hands of God.  Obviously, that oasis was not a physical place.  It wasn’t even just an emotional state of mind.  It was something much more important, much more enduring, much more satisfying—it was the spiritual reality of being cared for by the only One who truly has the power of life and death.

In another psalm wrote, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16, NLT)  David knew and relied upon this truth—that God knew the exact number of days that David would live—and he would not die a day sooner nor live a day longer than what God had foreordained.  Nothing could change that—not Absalom, not betrayal, not war, not poverty, not disease—nothing!  God alone held that power over David’s life.

That’s why, coup and exile notwithstanding, David found this world a perfectly safe place. That’s why even in the midst of his crisis, David could “lie down and sleep—and wake again.”  It was the Lord who was sustaining him. That is just the way you think—and live—when you truly understand that your life is fully in God’s hands.

Your life is there too, you know!  Or maybe you don’t—but even if you don’t, that truth remains settled:  Because of the saving faith you have expressed in Jesus Christ, your address has permanently changed to God’s hands.

It’s high time you starting enjoying your new zip code.

“A consciousness of our powerlessness should cast us upon Him who has all power.  Here then is where a vision and view of God’s sovereignty helps, for it reveals His sufficiency and shows us our insufficiency.”  ~Arthur W. Pink