Main news for 25 June 2020

What means the prophet, by saying that God is a good refuge in the day of disaster? It would have been easier of course to interpret his words in this sense that the religious feeling, hope in God help in the difficult days those, who have such hope. It is difficult to argue with it; but is it about such a hope that speaks Nahum? Indeed, in fact, it would then be more just to speak not about God, as a safe refuge, but of the religious feeling, as a safe support, which in the day the disaster can really be useful and was useful for many. And the prophet among others speaks about God's goodness, which becomes refuge in the day of trouble (the Jewish corresponding text can be also interpreted like that). And indeed, God's goodness belongs not only to God. He also put it in the world created by Him, which at the beginning, before the fall, was, according to the word of the Bible, "very well" (or "very good"; in the Jewish corresponding text is used the same word that uses Nahum in his sermon).

And part of this goodness, inseparable from the fullness of God's world, fullness destroyed by the fall, turn out people looking for salvation to God (the corresponding Jew word transmitted in the translation King James Version as "hoping", mean in fact "seekers of refuge " or "seekers of salvation"). Indeed: anyone, seeking God's salvation or refuge, obviously, is ready to trust Him with all his heart, fully rely on Him. And such readiness establishes between God and man deep and solid relationships, relationships appropriate not so much to the fallen world, as to the Kingdom.

Of course, it was early again to speak about the proximity of the Kingdom before the coming into the world of Christ. But indeed, the world was from the beginning designed by God, as His Kingdom. It stopped being so as a result of the fall, which was the fact not so much natural or historic, as spiritual (all the natural and historic phenomena connected with the fall are only consequence). But the one, whose relationship with God restored as much as possible for the fallen world, has joined this fullness of God's world, which for God always remained a reality. And such fullness could really become a real refuge. Even in the darkest days.