I’ve come to cherish God as a tower of refuge to his children, to me, his daughter. I’ve fallen in love with the discovery that God is my tower of safety during times of trial, difficulty or confusion.

Psalm 18:2 NLT

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.

Let’s look at it in The Passion Translation

Psalm 18:2

You’re as real to me as bedrock beneath my feet, like a castle on a cliff, my forever firm fortress, my mountain of hiding, my pathway of escape, my tower of rescue where none can reach me. My secret strength and shield around me, you are salvation’s ray of brightness shining on the hillside, always the champion of my cause.

Psalm 61:2-3 NLT

From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.

Psalm 144:2a NLT

He is my loving ally and my fortress, my tower of safety, my rescuer. He is my shield and I take refuge in him.

This reference first came alive for me when I was dealing with a cantankerous coworker my first summer in
Albuquerque. I had just moved across the country with little more than hope and chutzpah. The first job I got was cold calling people over the telephone to persuade them to volunteer to fundraise for a charity.

We’ll call that bawdy broad who spiked my ire, Betsy. She was grey haired and disheveled, with eyes keen as a hawk and a voice like a trumpet blasting orders.  She lugged her oxygen tank outside for cigarette breaks, coming to rest in the driver’s seat of her worn, tired automobile, as the car, groaning in duress, sunk down under her weight. To me her car always felt like it was going to fall apart at any second. I was always halfway trying to find the hidden duct tape and wire that I thought must be holding her vehicle together.

She was an overbearing, boorish bully. I heard tales of her previous political incorrectness. The only one I can remember right now is that she called a Native American coworker, Pocahontas and sincerely couldn’t understand why that wasn’t acceptable. Then I came along, fresh into my new lay-it-all-down-for-Jesus life and honestly, I wasn’t sure anymore how to act.

I’d worked decades in corporate America, but then I felt radically redeemed, and I was worried if I wasn’t fanatical, I might be betraying my new found love for Christ.  Sometimes I’m still not sure how to act. I’d left the only ministry I knew at 39 years of age.  Then a couple years later I felt like God asked me to give away practically all my belongings. Six months later I flew across the country from Columbus, Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico on a one-way plane ticket with no savings and no job – just grit, determination and fierce hope.

I landed at the Albuquerque International Sunport late on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. The Fourth of July was on a Saturday that year and I began this short-term position the following week.  Betsy was curious about me. She had worked for this charity previous summers and winters and I was a new face among the summer workers. I made my passion for Jesus known, and she seemed to zero in on how to behave  contrary to that. She would begin to loudly praise the goddess of the working woman when she successfully recruited a volunteer. She would take over the morning staff meeting to explain how she had reached out to the powers of the universe to enlist their aid.

Honestly, at that point, I was rigid for Jesus. Every time Betsy spoke like that I was fit to be tied. It’s rather humorous looking back. And Father God used the opportunity to teach me some about how to relax.

She sat directly across from me and the thin cube wall did little to muffle her booming voice. I would silently bind and rebuke her most of the day. I felt locked in an epic spiritual battle with her, although most of my warfare was under my breath.  I was constantly wound up and tense, full of contention and conflict. I thought that was the appropriate approach to spiritual warfare at that stage of my walk with God.

But one day I clearly understood God impress upon me that I was not to engage with Betsy that day, not even by silently rebuking and binding the spirits I believed to be operating through her. To obey the Father’s direction, I mentally placed myself inside the tower of God. That is the first time I remember doing that. I don’t recall how I had the idea, but once I visualized myself inside the tower that is God, I was surprised and delighted to see Jesus inside with me! We were sitting cross-legged on the floor playing Uno!!

This mental vision tickled and fascinated my heart, helping me keep myself out of feeling the need to control the situation with Betsy through prayer and rebuking like I usually did. To my surprise when I stopped trying to combat her inside my spirit, things were much calmer. I realized all my effort was not necessarily God’s will for how I should behave in that and similar situations. I realized that my attitude and stance toward Betsy was really making things worse, not better.

I have continued to utilize the tool of placing myself in the tower in the years since. Usually the times that I place myself in the tower of God are when I feel my mind under a relentless attack from the enemy. I’ve talked to enough people to imagine you will recognize the scene I’m about to describe.

I don’t always recognize right away that it is an attack of the enemy. The thoughts feel like my own. I will begin to feel that I am unholy or less than or, feel accused. I will defend myself against these thoughts. Well, yes, that was a bad thought, I’ll concede, then explain but I love that person and I enjoy their presence, but I did have this bad thought about them…more than once….I’m not perfect…and while I’m still defending myself, another thought arrives fast and furious attacking my character, my motive of heart, my discipline of life.

These accusations come at me and I defend myself – again and again, not even realizing these thoughts are not my own, they are our common enemy whose name satan means accuser, adversary. That’s who he is. That is what he does.  He comes to steal, kill and destroy as it tells us in John 10:10.

Back and forth it goes, a volley of attack and defense and I am worn out by it. Then I will realize this is a wearying tactic of the enemy, the devil. However, even recognizing what is happening doesn’t seem to stop the volley for me. What has worked for me at times is to declare in my spirit that I am going into the tower. I don’t understand exactly how it works, but it seems that God honors that statement and in my mind I see myself in this tower and my mind quiets and I find relief.

The tower has looked different in these visions at different times. One day as I walked to work, I put myself in the tower and I noticed a window in the tower that I had never seen before. I went to the window and looked out. To my surprise and delight I saw Jesus carrying a flame thrower. He was burning up all the lies and accusations Satan made against me.  I found so much comfort and encouragement in that visual! All day long while at work as I walked to get a cup of coffee, or go to the bathroom, in my mind, I would look out the tower window and see Jesus Christ hard at work defending me against the ceaseless attacks of the enemy.

Revelations 12:10-11 NLT

Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last – salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth – the one who accuses them before our God day and night.

And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.

Another time, there was an interior courtyard with a lush, blooming garden in the tower vision. That occurred in January or February when blooming gardens were not yet, even in Albuquerque which does experience winter. Sometimes the tower has been small, sometimes it has been vast, with wandering wings left for exploration. I don’t know what new details God will place for me in the tower, but it’s always a pleasant surprise to discover.

I want to follow up on Betsy. Months after the summer work session ended she would call and quiz me about what I knew about future work at the charity, about my life and what I was doing. One time she confessed to me her loneliness. And I encouraged her. I came to feel compassion for Betsy and was moved to tears as I prayed for her on my walks to work. I don’t know where she is now, but she gave me a real gift. Her combative behavior drove me to discover the tower of God that has become a place of rest and refuge for me.

I hope my story can inspire you to find that same sweet relief, whether it’s the vision of the tower, or a different, yet personal and perfect for you experience of the sanctuary of our God. He is a rest to his people.