The Name You Can Run To
The Name You Can Run To
“The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”
Proverbs 18:10
There are moments in life when we all need somewhere to turn. Maybe you’re dealing with a situation you don’t know how to fix. Maybe you’re carrying something you haven’t told anyone about. Or maybe you’re facing uncertainty about what comes next. When those moments come, our natural response can be to try to figure everything out ourselves. We look for solutions, make plans, ask for advice, or simply try to push through. But Proverbs 18:10 gives us a different reminder: “The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” A fortified tower was a place of protection. When danger came, people could run toward it for safety. That’s the picture Proverbs gives us of God. He isn’t promising that we will never experience difficult circumstances; instead, He reminds us that when those circumstances come, we have a place of refuge in Him.
Where Do You Turn?
When something goes wrong, where do you go first? For some of us, it’s our own strength. We immediately start thinking about how we’re going to fix the problem. For others, it’s worry. We replay the situation over and over, imagining every possible outcome. Sometimes we look to other people to give us advice. Sometimes we try to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling altogether. None of these things are necessarily wrong, but there’s a difference between doing those things while trusting God and believing that everything depends on us. Proverbs 18:10 reminds us where our first refuge should be. We can bring our problems to God before we have solutions. We can pray when we don’t know what to say. We can ask for wisdom when we don’t know which direction to take. We can surrender the things we can’t control instead of allowing them to consume us. God doesn’t ask us to have everything figured out before we come to Him.
Step Into the Paint
Think about what happens when you’re playing basketball and the defense starts closing in. You drive toward the basket, but suddenly there’s nowhere to go. A defender cuts you off. Another player steps over to help. The space that was there a second ago disappears. In that moment, you need somewhere to go with the ball. Maybe you make the pass. Maybe you find an open teammate. Maybe you pull the ball back and reset the play. The point is that you don’t have to force your way through every situation. Life can feel like that sometimes. You can be moving forward and suddenly find yourself surrounded by circumstances you didn’t expect. A plan falls apart. An opportunity doesn’t work out. A relationship becomes difficult. Work becomes stressful. Something happens that leaves you wondering, “What am I supposed to do now?” Those moments can make us feel like we’re on our own. But we’re not. God is our fortified tower. When we don’t know where else to turn, we can turn to Him.
You Don’t Have to Be Strong All the Time
There’s nothing wrong with being strong. We should work hard, take responsibility, and do our best with what God has given us. But sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to be strong that we forget we were never meant to rely entirely on our own strength. There will be situations that are bigger than us. There will be prayers that aren’t answered as quickly as we hoped. There will be problems that we can’t solve immediately. There will be seasons when we simply don’t know what the next step looks like. And that’s okay. Being a Christian doesn’t mean we always have to know what we’re doing. It doesn’t mean we won’t feel overwhelmed. It doesn’t mean we won’t have moments when we’re afraid. It means that when we reach those moments, we know where to turn. The beauty of Proverbs 18:10 is that the tower is already there. We don’t have to build it ourselves. We don’t have to earn our way into it. God is already there, ready for us to run to Him.
Run Before You Need To
One of the things I find interesting about this verse is the language it uses: “the righteous run to it.” It doesn’t say they slowly make their way toward it. They run, which draws a sense of urgency. Perhaps that’s something worth thinking about in our own lives. Do we only turn to God when everything else has failed, or have we already made Him our refuge? Prayer shouldn’t only happen when we’re desperate. The Bible shouldn’t only be opened when we’re looking for an answer. Our relationship with God shouldn’t only become important when life becomes difficult. The more we learn to trust Him in the ordinary moments, the easier it becomes to turn to Him in the difficult ones. We learn to run to Him before the pressure comes.
When Life Feels Uncertain
None of us knows exactly what the future holds. There may be things you’re dealing with right now that you don’t understand. You may have questions about your family, your career, your finances, your relationships, or simply where life is taking you next. You may have been praying about something for a long time and still be waiting for an answer. Proverbs 18:10 doesn’t give us a promise that everything will work out exactly the way we want it to, but it does remind us of something just as important: we have somewhere to run.
God is our refuge when we are overwhelmed. He is our strength when we feel weak. He is our peace when our minds are restless. And He remains present even when we can’t see what He’s doing. So when life gets difficult, don’t feel like you have to carry everything on your own; run to God. Bring Him the situation you can’t solve. Bring Him the question you can’t answer. Bring Him the fear you’ve been carrying. Bring Him the uncertainty about what comes next.
You may not know what tomorrow holds, but you can know where to turn when tomorrow comes. Run to Him.