Never make the mistake of supposing that anything in this world is ultimately secure, or that any person or thing can give you personal security. Do not look for it in any relationship, for human beings will betray and every one of us eventually disappoints. Do not see it in your job or profession. Every business and profession is finally governed by the bottom line, and cold mathematics accounts people less valuable than dollars. Physical attributes are untrustworthy—beauty, physique, glamor, charm, and the whole lot of them! Such traits always wear out or wear thin and swarms of younger, more energetic people are only too happy to replace their weary and time-scarred senior.
Religion cannot provide security. Nor can any church, or doctrine, or sacraments, or mystical experiences, or good works. These all involve other people, or at the very least one’s own self, and human frailties infect every institution or activity we touch.
Only God is secure, and only he provides genuine security. He is altogether good and he is unchangeable, which is very good. He is faithful even when we are faithless, for that is his nature and it does not depend in the least on anything he sees in us. He is eternal and ever-present. You will never inhabit any time or space where God is absent. We see all this in the cross of Christ, in the sinless life shed there for our sins, and in the empty tomb which authenticated what God did there for sinners. You cannot safely repose trust in anything or anyone except God. But you can trust God without reservation.
Christian author Max Lucado once concluded a sermon with a prayer which he said hangs over his desk. These anonymous words deserve reading first upon our arising in the morning and last before retiring at night: “Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, and the exceeding wonder of grace. I am guilty but pardoned. I am lost but saved. I am wandering but found. I am sinning but cleansed. Give me perpetual brokenheartedness. Keep me clinging to thy cross.”
That is something on which you can depend.