From the moment we’re born, we long for security. And then we grow up, and one day we realize we’re still searching for that “everything’s-gonna-to-be-okay” feeling. Some of us spend year after year scrambling for something—anything—that will produce at least an illusion of security. We might run after relationships, control, wealth, pleasure, experiences, or prestige in the hope that we’ll finally feel safe. Sooner or later, we discover that our bogus safety nets have failed to give us the security we long for.

And then we encounter Jesus. Hurray! we think as we breathe a sigh of relief. He’ll keep me safe! My troubles are over. But our contentment is short-lived if our methods of feeling safe are no better than they were before (even though they might look more virtuous). For example, if we make up our mind to be “good enough” so that God won’t reject us, we discover we just can’t cut it. (We’ll also become overbearing and legalistic in the process.) Or if we assume that security lies in “head knowledge,” we’ll educate ourselves until we become theologians with no heart. Frustrated and exhausted, we’ll eventually realize our religious safety nets have failed us as miserably as our conventional ones did.

Here’s the clincher: the deep sense of safety we all long for can’t be found through worldly methods, but it can’t be found in Christian living, either. There’s a lot to be said for living according to God’s principles, but He—not holiness or good works—is our hiding place. Security comes only through Him. “No one is able to snatch [you] out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:29). You are secure only when you’re hidden in Christ.

The God-life doesn’t guarantee safety and in fact might take us into dangerous circumstances, so we might as well forfeit all counterfeit forms of security and cling only to Him.