He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. — Psalm 91:1

When you were a child, did you have a secret place? A corner, a closet, a spot under a tree that was yours and yours alone, where you went and believed you were hidden from the world? Everyone in the family probably knew exactly where you were. But it was your secret place.

Everyone has a secret place, and strangely enough, it isn’t a secret. It is the inner place, the one place no one but you can enter or experience. That is why it is called secret. It is your own.

The 91st Psalm is about that place. It is one of the most powerful prayers ever written, and it is more than a prayer.

Why the Psalms work

The Old Testament’s Book of Psalms was once called the Little Bible. The Psalms were songs, prayers that were sung, and they were designed as tools. They were meant to change the consciousness of the person who understood and used them. For thousands of years, men and women have been praying their way out of every kind of problem with them. I don’t believe you can name a difficulty that someone has not found release from through a psalm.

The psalmists understood things we have not fully grasped in our modern lives. They understood that the human mind is a goal-setting and goal-achieving mechanism. They understood the creative power of imagination, and its destructive power. How we use our imagination will lift us up or tear us down. They understood the power of words: Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee (Job 22:28). What you say, and believe, becomes the law of your life. And they understood that when you project a picture on the screen of your mind and bring deep feeling into it, something like a marriage takes place. Thought and feeling come together, and there is a conception, and in time a birth.

Think about the 23rd Psalm. Why did David say, The Lord is my shepherd? Because David had been a shepherd. He knew things about shepherds that most of us never will. He knew how helpless sheep are. He knew that a shepherd is responsible for every one of them, and will leave the ninety-nine to go after the one that is lost. The shepherd has no choice but to care for the sheep. So David created a picture in his mind, a personal relationship with God, and the next line followed naturally: I shall not want. Something happens to the sheep when the shepherd is in charge.

Many of us have read the Psalms the way we used to say the Lord’s Prayer, reciting the words while thinking about something down the street. When we pray that way, we haven’t prayed at all. The prayer is not the words. It is the feeling, the pictures, what takes place in the mind.

A prayer was never designed to change the mind of God. As children we learned where our parents’ buttons were, and we thought prayer was a button we could push to get God to do what we wanted. That is not what prayer is, and it never was. Prayer is the process you use to change your own mind. When your mind is changed, everything else is changed. That is why the Psalms are the most powerful systems of prayer ever designed.

So let’s walk through the 91st Psalm, verse by verse. We don’t know who wrote it. The psalm says “he,” and it means every one of us.

Dwelling in the secret place

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. (v. 1)

Where is the secret place of the Most High? It is in you. It is your own consciousness.

If you knew where God was waiting for you, would you go there from time to time? That is the secret meeting place you have with God, and it is not out there somewhere. It never was. Any time you have experienced God in your life, it has been within yourself. Not across the sea, not up in the sky, not at some time in the future. It happens in a now moment, and it happens within you.

Our success in prayer depends on getting into some degree of personal contact with God, and God can only be contacted within. As long as we’re looking outside, we won’t find God. As long as our attention is fixed on the problem, praying to an outside God to fix an outside problem, we won’t see results. That is why our prayers so often seem to fail.

The most important movement in prayer is to withdraw into the secret place, knowing that is where we meet God. Jesus made this the foundation of his whole teaching. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. And when he was asked where the kingdom was, he said, the kingdom of God is within you. You can search here and there, but you won’t find it until you look within.

To abide under the shadow is an Eastern way of saying to be safe. A shadow means the one who casts it is close. If I am under the shadow of the Almighty, the Almighty is right here. I am in a sanctuary. And because God is Almighty, whatever my present difficulty is, however big it is, God is greater.

Notice that the promise is made to the one who dwells. It doesn’t say the one who sometimes stops by. God will come to our rescue in any moment. An atheist can turn to God, someone who has never prayed in their life can turn to God, and the miracle can happen just like that. I have seen it, and I have experienced it. But what we are after is a conscious contact with God on a regular basis, so that we begin to dwell there. We return to that place again and again until it becomes our way of life, and its rewards become ours.

“In Him will I trust”

I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. (v. 2)

Here the psalm shifts from “he” to “I.” It becomes personal. I will say it.

Throughout the Bible, Lord means God, the one power that formed the universe, but it means God as the presence within the one who is aware of it. It means the indwelling Christ, the presence of God in each of us. Over the centuries, words lose their power, so Jesus took another step to make it personal. He called God Father, his Father and ours. It is the same presence the psalmists called Lord.

In him will I trust. However worried I am, however depressed, however strong my doubts, however big the problem and however remote the answer, in Him will I trust. In this moment I have made a choice. I have chosen to stop trusting my circumstances and to stop believing in the problem.

Have you ever kept hoping something would change? That the answer would come, that someone in your life would finally change so your life could be better? How many times has hoping ever changed anything? Never. It never got easier. Have you ever hoped a few pounds would come off? They didn’t.

It’s when you make a decision, a fist-pounding decision, and say I will do it, that something happens. The moment you truly decide, the whole universe goes into action to support you. The quality and depth of your decision is always honored.

This doesn’t mean the problem is already solved. Nothing has shifted yet. The problem is still there and you can still see it. But in God I will trust. You may have to say it a hundred times or a thousand times. That is why a psalm needs to be repeated until it is ingrained in your consciousness.

The arrow by day and the terror by night

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. (vv. 3–4)

We have done our part, and now comes the promise.

I doubt any of us has faced a fowler’s snare lately. But we have each faced our own version. The things that plague our lives keep happening. Move to another country, and they will be waiting for you there. They stay until something changes, and the psalm is the process of that change.

I once heard a story about a mother hen crossing a barnyard with her chicks. When someone got too close, she squatted down while the chicks ran under her wings and feathers. One little chick was left out. The person went to catch him and almost did, but he scurried under his mother. What a picture: under his wings shalt thou trust. It makes no difference what is going on out there. You are protected, cared for, and nurtured.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. (vv. 5–6)

The mystics of old understood the mind better than we often give them credit for. Our troubles come in two kinds: those in the conscious mind and those in the subconscious, and each has to be dealt with in its own way.

The arrow by day and the destruction at noonday are the troubles you can see. You know they are there. You face them regularly, you have tried everything you know, and they remain.

The terror by night and the pestilence that walketh in darkness are the troubles you can’t see. They work in the subconscious, unsuspected by you or anyone around you. If you grew up in a dysfunctional home, you may keep repeating the very patterns you tried to escape. As a teenager, did you ever say, If I ever get out of here, I’m going to live differently? Well, you’re out. How different is it? Paul put it this way: For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do (Romans 7:19). And then there are the fears, the silent, secret apprehensions we can’t see or attack directly.

The psalm promises that fear will be taken from us, and that we will be set free of all these troubles, the outer ones and the inner ones.

A thousand may fall

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. (vv. 7–8)

This verse has been badly misunderstood, as if God plays favorites. That is impossible. God is no respecter of persons. What it means is that those who pray are spared trouble that would otherwise overtake them.

You can prove this in your own life. Has there been a time when your spiritual growth was the most important thing in your life? You woke up feeling so good you could hardly stand it. You knew God was with you and all was well, and sure enough, it was that way all day. Problems came and you handled them. You didn’t lose your joy or your temper, or if you did, you got it back quickly.

And then things got so good that you quit. You dropped off the radar. And what happened? All hell broke loose, the only hell there is. The things that had troubled you came back, and you were powerless over them.

That is the reward of the wicked, and you have seen it in your own life. The word wicked originally meant bewitched. In the language of our twelve-step program, when we have not established our conscious contact with God, we are not working our program. We are the bewitched, bothered, and bewildered. Caught up in our human condition, we are not in charge. It’s as if forces outside ourselves are running our lives.

A promise is a law

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. (vv. 9–10)

Of all the many promises of God’s help in Scripture, I know of none more definite than this one. How would you like to believe it? How would you like to live every day knowing nothing could harm you, nothing could shake you, and whatever happened would be for your good, for your growth, for your learning? That is the way of life this psalm shows us, and it is open to every person, because it is how we truly exist inside. It is what our relationship with God really is.

The Bible has its own language, and in that language a promise is not like a promise between you and me. If I promise to meet you on a certain corner, you’d expect me there, but I could break that promise. When the Bible makes a promise, it cannot be broken. It is a promise in the sense of a law, the law of cause and effect.

The commandments don’t simply say you shall not steal. In effect they say you cannot, because whoever steals pays the price in some form at some time. The first payment comes the moment you do it: you know you are a thief. We live in a universe of law, and the law always follows through. If you love, you will be loved. If you give, it will be given to you. If you share, others will share with you. It is impossible to break.

So the psalmist is telling us that by meditating regularly in the presence of God, and directing our lives by that presence, we are kept from harm. Most people go through life scared to death, believing in the things they fear. But here you become a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Only, though, because you have fulfilled the conditions. The 91st Psalm is the process of fulfilling them.

His angels charge over you

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. (vv. 11–12)

How will this happen? Lord, how are you going to do this for me? The psalm answers.

Read it again, and hear it the way your heart would hear it. It is like a mother carrying a child close to her breast.

Remember where the psalmist began: in deep trouble, separated from God, caught up in the consequences of his own behavior. Now, having gone through these steps, he is told that God has given His angels charge over him.

You and I might think, Who, me? I’m no exalted being. Why would I have an escort of angels? But the Bible is the book of every person, and the promise is given to each of us. As the result of doing these things and believing what you have come to believe, this is the law. It cannot be any other way. You cannot escape your good.

The lion and the serpent

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. (v. 13)

Now the psalmist is carried away by the fervor of his awakening. That is invincible protection. Who among us would like to walk on snakes and dragons and be safe?

When a lion goes into action, it is a killing machine and comes at you head on. You know what is happening. And a young lion is worse than an old one.

A snake is different. It slithers and hides in the grass.

Here again is the conscious and the subconscious: the visible dangers you see coming, and the hidden, sneaky ones you don’t. The psalm says it doesn’t matter what they are. You have come to dwell in the secret place. You have come to abide under the shadow of the Almighty. You have put your trust in God. You are safe.

“Because he hath set his love upon me”

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. (v. 14)

Now God speaks, answering the question of why.

Right away we want to protest. But God, I don’t really love you. I’d like to. I haven’t spent enough time with you. I’ve spent most of my life caught up in the things that controlled my mind. How could I love you enough to deserve this protection?

And God says it doesn’t matter. The fact that you have turned to me is your love for me.

Because he hath known my name. This doesn’t mean addressing God with the right words. In the Bible, name means nature. Because you have come to understand My nature. Because you are coming to believe in Me and to know that I am love. Because you are willing to take on My feelings and let them become yours. Because now and then you stop and love a person you once would have judged or reacted to. That is your love for Me, and I will set you on high, because you are expressing My qualities in your own life.

“He shall call upon me, and I will answer”

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation. (vv. 15–16)

The last two verses gather up every promise and present them to our fearful minds one more time.

It is as if God is saying: You have joined Me in the secret place. Now you will go back out into your life, and you will forget Me. You will forget what you felt here. You’ll lose this assurance. Before long you’ll be back where you were, maybe not as deep, but you will forget.

And then: He shall call upon me, and I will answer him.

The moment we stop, wherever we are, and turn to God and ask for help, it is there. It doesn’t matter what is happening. A thousand can fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, and the trouble will not come near you.

Living in the secret place

I love the Psalms, they are a movement of consciousness that shows us who we are and where God is, and brings us and God into one movement of spirit.

The way to use the 91st Psalm is to use it. Read it slowly. See the pictures: the shadow, the wings, the angels’ hands. Feel them. Say in Him will I trust when nothing has changed yet, and say it again. Return to the secret place every day, not just when things fall apart, until you are no longer visiting but dwelling.

It is my prayer for you and for me that we become those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

God bless you.