Where Do We Turn When Everything Is Shaken?

This blog post is based on a recent sermon I preached on Psalm 46, exploring God as our true refuge in an uncertain world.

Have you ever noticed how much of our lives is built on things that are far less secure than we think? Have you ever stopped to think about how we, as a society, build our hopes on our health, our finances, our jobs, our relationships, and even the world around us? Yet any one of these things can change in a moment.

When I was preparing for this, I was listening to a sermon on this very passage, and the pastor was talking about how busy and unstable life was back then. He was listing the various things contributing to this, such as the rise of the internet, online shopping and on-demand TV. And I thought to myself that these things didn't seem so bad!

It turns out the sermon had been recorded back in mid-2001. Fast forward 25 years, and we've experienced:

• 9/11
• The Global Financial Crisis
• Brexit
• The COVID-19 pandemic
• The war in Ukraine

And, looking at our world at this precise moment, here in 2026, it doesn't take very long to see that we still live in unstable times. You only have to switch on the news to see that governments rise and fall.

Here in the UK, we've had seven Prime Ministers in recent decades. Political parties search for leaders who promise to 'fix' the country's problems, yet every election brings fresh challenges, and it's not long before one leader is out and another is in.

We've seen news headlines such as "Britain's revolving door" and "Has Britain become an ungovernable country?"

But there is more. We continue to live with the consequences of COVID-19, wars continue in places like Ukraine and the Middle East, and many families still feel the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis.

It can often feel as though the world is becoming increasingly unstable, with more and more things feeling uncertain.

According to statistics from the Office for National Statistics, 88% of adults identified the cost of living as the most important issue facing the country.

Anxiety is widespread, with one in three adults experiencing high levels of anxiety, and younger adults reporting even higher rates. Many people are also struggling financially, with around one in four adults saying they find it difficult to get by financially.

And despite all this bad news, there is hope!

I want to reassure you that, despite what we see in the news and in the world around us, there is hope. Psalm 46 lays out the foundation for this.

As Christians, we recognise that many of the things people turn to for security (money, politics, health, success or human solutions), as important as they may be, are ultimately unstable foundations.

When we build our lives on things that can be shaken, we should not be surprised when we feel shaken ourselves.

The purpose of this sermon isn't to preach some quick self-help remedy. That won't get you very far. My hope is to point you to the only true and unchanging refuge: God Himself, the one who can meet all your needs and bring real life.

And so, the big question I have for you is this: If (or when) everything around you begins to collapse, where would you turn?

Psalm 46 was written by those who knew what it was like to live in uncertain times, much like ours. They faced a world where nations raged, kingdoms fell, and everything around them seemed unstable. Yet their confidence was not found in their circumstances changing, but in the unchanging presence of God.

The writer is not writing from a place of comfort or security. They are surrounded by fear, instability and constant threat.

The imagery used in this Psalm, which we will explore later, of the earth giving way, mountains falling into the sea, waters roaring and nations raging, shows someone living in a world that feels like it is falling apart.

The Psalm is a hymn celebrating the special city to which God has pledged Himself and through which He would bless the world.

It was chosen to be His holy habitation, the place where His people meet and worship Him, so that His truth might go forth to the nations and people from every nation would come to worship Him.

Although the circumstances may look very different from what we face today, the questions are exactly the same.

The psalmist is getting us to see that the things which the world offers, things which appear convincingly stable and reliable, are in fact volatile and unreliable. They will never truly provide for our deepest needs.

So that leaves us with a question: Where do we run when life begins to shake? Where do we look for security when everything around us seems uncertain?

The fundamental core truth of Psalm 46 is this: while the world changes, God does not. While politicians and economies collapse, God remains steadfast.