My Life-Storm Bunker Was Safe, But DEADLY

The hurricane that just slammed the Florida panhandle produced devastation, destruction, and death. The heartbreaking images that crawled across our screens were hard to watch but impossible to ignore. But cut into that movie were stories of people ducking into storm shelters to ride out the assault.

As I watched this reel click forward frame-by-frame, I quickly thought of the figurative bunkers Christians scurry to when the weather in our life produces the equivalent of those hurricane-force assaults that pummeled America’s Sunshine State in early October.
  
It’s true. Many of us retreat to a “warm and safe” bunker to wait out the storms of life. But in the bunker’s dank and dark space, we become disconnected from REALITY and what God would have us do for His Kingdom—OUTSIDE!
  
Bunkers can be places of comfort and life-savers as we saw in Florida’s most recent waltz with the weather. That truth notwithstanding, it is common for believers to mistakenly view them as representations of reality. They are not.
  
If we stay in the bunker for a prolonged period of time, it puts us at risk to having a part of us die there.
  
Bunker dwellers are denying reality just by their escape to its space where they cower in the darkness waiting for a “dream rescue” where someone will guide us out into the light. It could be a new job. Or a “fixed” relationship. Or a new house. Perhaps a new car.
  
Even though that dream rescue is elusive because it’s an illusion, there is a rescuer waiting outside the bunker’s barrier. That rescuer is Jesus.
  
When the storms of life smack into me and I am tempted to escape into a bunker, I pray for the strength to have my immediate reaction be to seek God.
  
HOW ABOUT YOU?
  
Do you have an unhealthy bunker you seek when life deals you a bad hand? If so, ask God for the discernment and direction you need to turn away from its false comfort and, instead, turn toward his protection promise.
  
“These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” Colossians 2:17