Our Championship Wrestler

Nahum 1:7 "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; And He knows those who trust in Him."

Here is Nahum pronouncing a judgment against Nineveh and he comes back to this: "The Lord is good." I am sure that the Ninevites may have thought differently when they heard that they were going to be cut down. Kind of interesting, though. This is the same Nineveh that understood God's goodness because they had experienced it when another prophet, Jonah, told them that they were going down. Their response a century before Nahum was repentance and they personally saw how good God was. Years later, apparently, they forgot about His goodness and returned to their old ways.

Sad, really. We have a tendency to do this. We get in a tough spot, we cry out to God, He gets things all fixed up and then we forget. We forget His goodness and we turn back to the old way of doing things.

The thing is Nahum wanted to bring these people back to this truth. God is good. Just like Micah proclaimed that God was merciful, Nahum pronounced the very heart of God…His goodness. And His desire for us is for our goodness, our welfare, our benefit. God is not in heaven waiting to pounce. He is slow to anger. His heart is that we experience His goodness, not His wrath.

Nahum also wanted these people to know that God was their stronghold. He is our protection. He is our refuge. He is our place of safety. When things get tough, when we feel like everything is caving in around us we can run to Him and hide in Him, and find our strength and safety in Him.

I remember when I was a kid, I found my strength and protection in my Dad. If someone was harassing me I used to tell them that my Dad was a championship wrestler and he could take care of things. (He actually wrestled in High School and I believe went to state.) My Dad was my stronghold. I found safety in His reputation. Even beyond this, our Father God is our stronghold. His reputation is that He is The Championship Wrestler. He will guard and protect and defend us against all our enemies, no matter how powerful they may seem, He is greater.

So we need to trust Him. When we do, He knows it. The word for "trust" actually means to flee to Him for protection. When we do, God takes notice. He sees that we are not relying on our own power, or our own smarts, or our own ability. He pays attention to the fact that we acknowledge our helplessness and we are running to Him as our stronghold and as our Championship Wrestler, He takes care of things, because He is good.