God Is Our Hiding Place

July 16th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Psalm 32:6-7 Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. 7 You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.

“Therefore” is a marker of conclusion, summing up what was previously said. The previous context concerns the blessedness that follows the confession and repentance of sin—moving forward with God in a steady, loving walk with Him. David concludes that everyone who is “godly,” literally “whole,” should seek the Lord through prayer “in a time when [God] may be found.” This phrase simply means that as long as a sinful person has the breath of life, he can pray to God, confess his sins, and be forgiven. God is ever-present, patiently waiting for sinners to repent. He has not hidden Himself, and no one has transgressed so horribly that God is not available to them. Like the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11ff.), God is a loving Father waiting for His erring children to repent and receive His forgiveness so He can restore them.

The “godly,” those who are loyal to God, are unable to be knocked down by a “flood of great waters” (v. 6). These folks, forgiven of their sins, are like a high wall that flood waters cannot penetrate. But this is only possible through prayer, confession, and repentance. Without these, sin overwhelms a person like a flood, overtaking their lives and washing them out to sea. No matter how hopeless life can get, the godly rise above it by maintaining their walk with the Lord, confessing their sins to one another (James 5:16), and never allowing too much time to pass between their transgressions and their repentance from their rebellion.

Verse 7 is David turning his eyes toward heaven and calling God his “hiding place”—akin to God being a “refuge and fortress” (Ps. 91:2) for sinners—a place where no harm can come to those who seek God’s protection. In context, David’s “hiding place,” or covering, provided the freedom from himself, from his own conscience that held him captive. Notably, David was surrounded in his hiding place with “songs of deliverance”—literally with “shouts of deliverance you surround me.” This pictures God hemming His people in and shouting the cry of victory to all who might threaten His people. No wonder David felt so free in God’s hiding place!

To be sure, David is certainly talking about spiritual safety, not physical per se. For though God does grant physical safety in some instances, He does not guarantee it at all times. After all, Christians have been martyred for centuries, and death overtakes us all eventually. David’s troubles were mental, and they created a psychosomatic problem for him. When he kept his sins to himself, the guilt ate away at him. Yet no matter what circumstance he faced—death, sickness, or persecution—he was protected by the Lord with whom he was free of guilt upon confession.

Food For Thought
Have you ever noticed someone who just has that inner peace about them when difficult times enter into their lives? They cannot be shaken because their joy comes from their personal relationship with God through Christ. They know Him as “Father,” and their hope is in the truth of their adoption as His children through faith in Christ. As children of God, they are forgiven of all sins, and they walk in fellowship with Him—daily. That is the kind of peace and a happiness the world knows nothing about. It is a peace that does not go away when flood waters and fires take our homes, when cancer is detected in our body, or when a tragic car accident takes the life of an innocent child. These things happen to us all, but God’s peace and the happiness it brings are unshakable to those who keep their consciences clean by walking with Christ. If you have thwarted that happiness today because of sin in your life, then perhaps it’s time for you to confess it and enjoy God’s peace? At the very least, “Selah!”—dwell on the challenge to do so.