A SHELTER IN THE TIME OF STORM
By Paul David Tripp
IVP. 160 pages. £7.99
ISBN 978-1-84474-376-6
Paul David Tripp has written extremely helpfully on the subjects of Christian counselling and the pursuit of godliness through interpersonal relationships and personal crises.
Those readers familiar, for example, with his excellent Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands will hear the same voice and similar themes come through this quite different kind of book.
A Shelter in the Time of Storm is a series of 52 meditations on Psalm 27. Each one is based on a verse or part of a verse and none is more than three pages long. So this is good material for a daily moment of reflection — Tripp asks penetrating questions at the end of each piece to assist the reader in this exercise. Some of the meditations take the form of poetry, some reveal Tripp the counsellor or pastor, others Tripp the husband or father. Mostly we see Tripp the man, the redeemed sinner, walking the path with us, facing struggles with fear, idolatry, self-absorption, doubt and discouragement. We are all of us surely in a war zone as David was, we all need to discover the truth about ourselves. What is the ‘one thing’ we seek?
Most beautifully of all, Tripp finds Christ in the psalm, the one who faced enemies ‘breathing out violence’ so that we would know eternal security. This book is not only a superb aid to personal devotions, it is also a master-class in the neglected discipline of Christian meditation. Very highly recommended.
