The length of the fall is dictated by how far we had climbed. The outcome of the fall is dictated by whether we’re holding on to that which we’re climbing, or we’re letting God hold onto us.

If we doubt the faulty nature of the foundations that we create, we might ask if we’re currently standing on one, or are we sitting on the ground looking at the last one that collapsed. And since we’re already sitting, maybe we’d be smart to ponder that.

What we build certainly might look like a refuge, but if it wasn't designed by God it's something more akin to a leaky tent in the middle of a category 5 hurricane on a Monday morning. Nothing about it is good.

Why is it that none of the things I construct ever make me feel safe? The answer lies in the fact that safety can’t be created. It can only be found. And the only thing I've found that’s never been created is God.

Choosing a life of safety is safely choosing something other than life.

The more we construct lives that prioritize safety, the bigger the prison we construct around ourselves.

To build refuges of my own making is to construct fortresses of sand at ocean’s edge, where the relentless tides of time will leave my most magnificently constructed walls as perfectly flat sand. And now that I am subject to the very tides that destroyed these walls of mine, I am left with the reality that my single and sole refuge can only be the God who created both tides and sand.