Under His Wings

God speaks through pop culture. Music is one of His favorite microphones and musicians are often His “accidental” prophets. Take the prophet Tom Petty, for instance. 1979 was not a good year for Petty. The pressure of the music business was getting to him. His label, ABC Records, tried to sell his contract to MCA Records without him or this band, The Heartbreakers, knowing.

Angry at the system, defiant and refusing to be a victim, he pushed forward with his new recording. The music reflected his mood.  “Damn the Torpedoes!” struck a chord in our society and became an instant classic. Those three words, “Damn the torpedoes,” were made infamous by US Naval Captain David Farragut as he pushed “full steam ahead” against the odds to victory at the Battle of Mobile Bay in the War of 1812.

Petty tapped into that spirit. His song “Refugee” was an anthem against defeat:  

“Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some. 

Tell me, why you wanna lay there and revel in your abandon? 

Listen, it don’t make no difference to me. Everybody’s gotta fight to be free. 

You see, you don’t have to live like a refugee.”

A refugee is someone without a shelter, a home – a safe place. Refugees struggle to survive because they don’t have a place of protection. Petty was determined to be a survivor. Where was his place of refuge? Was it in Jesus? I don’t know. I do know that album gave Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers a miraculous survivor story.

Miraculous survivor stories always have one thing in common – a place of refuge.  Don’t you just love hearing a good survival story? So does God, but He loves to write them! He wrote yours! He doesn’t just offer to build you a refuge. He offers to be your refuge. David took him up on the offer. So should you.

“Be merciful to me, oh God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in you. And in the shadow of your wings, I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.” – Psalm 57:1