shiloh

Your Hiding Place

Your Hiding Place

When Joshua and the Israelites had conquered the land for seven years, they set up the place of worship to God at Shiloh. It had been a crazy time, watching miracles of waters parted, major enemies defeated by the power of God, and some pretty rough losses as well when they didn’t do things as God had directed. Shiloh means whole, sound, quiet, secure, health or abundance. This sounds like a good place to me, especially to get away and just have time with the God who was leading their nation.

I often want this quiet place to get away, and sometimes I get time for it. But what I fail to realize when I focus on a place is that Jesus is our Shiloh now, and I can go anytime I want as He lives within me. I want the place of worship to be external, and sometimes it is. But no one can take that access from me, even if a church is destroyed, circumstances have limited us, or we feel as though we are imprisoned.

Edith Eger wrote about her time in a concentration camp during World War 2 in her book The Choice. What she credits with getting her through this time of horror was something her mother told her before they were imprisoned: Just remember, no one can take away from you what you've put in your own mind. She kept pushing into the internal because she couldn’t find freedom in the external.