I have read Psalm 18 hundreds of times, but there is a version of that psalm that you can only learn in the dark. You can memorize it in the light, you can preach it in comfort, but you can only feel it—really feel it—when life leaves you nowhere to stand but in the sheltering shadow of God Himself. David wrote, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer… my high tower.” Those were poetic lines once. Later, they became my biography.
Our family had been living overseas for some time—ordinary life, ordinary routines—raising our three young children on the second floor of a residential building in Kuwait City. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t heroic. It was just life: worship, community, friendships, late-night talks, children’s laughter echoing off tile floors. The city itself was a blend of modern buildings, desert winds, cosmopolitan charm, and relentless heat. We loved it. We settled into it. It became home.
Then came the summer that changed everything.
I had been making visits to nearby countries—simple trips, nothing unusual. After several weeks of travel, I planned to be away longer. But on one particular day, out of nowhere, I felt something I could not ignore: a sudden, unmistakable urge to return to Kuwait immediately. There was no crisis waiting for me. No emergency tugging me back. No explanation at all. Just a strong internal impression that said, Get home tonight.
I’ve walked with God long enough to know that sometimes the Holy Spirit whispers, and sometimes He pushes. That day, it was a push.
I changed my ticket and called my wife.
She answered with surprise and a smile in her voice. “You ruined my anniversary surprise,” she said. She had quietly booked a night away for us at a beach hotel south of the city, a place we both enjoyed. Because of my schedule change, she adjusted the plan and moved the reservation to the Holiday Inn instead. It felt like a small inconvenience at the time. Later, it became one of the clearest evidences that the hand of God had been guiding us long before we knew why.
We arrived late that night. The children were excited, as children always are when life feels like an adventure. We settled in, enjoyed the air-conditioning—a gift in 130-degree weather—and went to bed.
The next morning, the children woke us early. I turned on the TV to find something to keep them occupied while we stirred awake. But instead of kids’ programming, the screen flashed breaking news: Iraqi forces were crossing the border into Kuwait. Tanks were rolling toward the capital. Soldiers were entering the city.
I walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. Eight floors below, the highway was thick with military vehicles—trucks, troop carriers, armored tanks—filling lanes in both directions.
And then the phone rang.
A friend, breathless and panicked:
“Have you heard what’s happening at the hotel south of the city? Soldiers have taken it over. Western guests are being rounded up.”
I didn’t need to finish the sentence.
If I had not changed my flight—
if my wife had not changed the reservation—
if we had gone to the original hotel—
we would have been among those taken.
What looked like an inconvenience the night before turned out to be God hiding us in plain sight.
It is a strange feeling when you suddenly realize that your life has been preserved by a decision you didn’t fully understand while making it. I stood there in the hotel room, the sound of tanks rumbling below us, and all I could think was: The Lord is my rock, and my fortress…
We decided to return to our apartment to see what the situation was. The roads were lined with soldiers. Some buildings already showed signs of shelling. Smoke drifted through the heat. My children watched from their car seats, asking questions that parents don’t want to answer.
When we reached our neighborhood, the change was immediate. Our apartment building sat only a short distance from significant government structures—places the invading forces quickly targeted. The air was thick with tension. You could hear gunfire in the distance, sometimes closer than comfort would allow. We moved the children to an interior room and prayed with them, using the words they understood:
“Jesus is with us. Jesus sees us. Jesus protects us.”
That Sabbath evening, we sang simple children’s songs—songs of angels, songs of trust—holding onto a peace that felt fragile on the surface but strong underneath.
Then the phone rang again.
A friend:
“Have you heard? Westerners at the beach hotel have been taken to Baghdad. They’re being used as human shields.”
My wife and I looked at each other, the same realization hitting us at the same moment:
If I had not come home early—
if she had not changed the reservation—
if we had arrived even one day later—
our three young children would have been on those buses to Baghdad.
Psalm 18 says, “In my distress I called upon the Lord… He heard my voice… and my cry came before Him.” I didn’t even know enough to cry for this particular protection—but God heard the cry I had not yet prayed.
Over the next days, the city changed rapidly. The temperature stayed hotter than many ovens. 135 degrees. 138. Hot winds pushed sand across the roads, and the air tasted like dust and metal. Soldiers patrolled everywhere. Some buildings were smashed. Others burned. There was a sense of unpredictability so sharp you could feel it pressing against your skin.
Then came another announcement—an unexpected one: women and children would be allowed to leave the country.
My wife packed quickly, choosing what mattered most: water, food, clothing, toys, crayons, books—anything to ease the journey for the children. I watched her at the bus station, saying goodbye under a sky that felt heavy. She was brave. I tried to be. But bravery is a strange mixture of trust and trembling.
The buses had no air-conditioning. The desert heat was brutal. They drove all day, crossing miles of sand and checkpoints, until they finally reached Baghdad at midnight. There, more delays. More waiting. More uncertainty.
Eventually—mercifully—they boarded a flight out of Iraq and then connected to another heading toward safety.
I returned to our apartment alone.
Walking into a home still full of children’s shoes and toys while knowing they were far away created a quiet ache I didn’t know how to name. I prayed constantly—prayers of trust, prayers of fear, prayers without words.
One morning, shouts echoed in the street. When I peered out the blinds, soldiers were going door to door rounding up men from every home on the block. I watched—frozen, praying—as they approached our building, house by house, step by step.
They stopped at the house next door.
Then the next.
Then the next.
And for reasons I cannot explain, they skipped mine.
Thirty men were taken from that block.
I was not one of them.
You learn quickly that there are no coincidences in a season like that. Only the invisible hand of a very visible God.
As danger increased, I prepared a hiding place in the storage room on the top floor—a room stacked with boxes of books. I rearranged them to form a narrow cave just big enough for a sleeping bag, water, a flashlight, some food, and my Bible. I spent hours in that cramped space reading Psalms by flashlight.
Psalm 143 became oxygen to my soul:
“Hear me speedily, O Lord… My spirit fails… Deliver me from my enemies… For I flee unto Thee to hide me.”
I had never felt those words so physically.
Life became a mix of prayer, waiting, listening, and moments of danger. Sometimes gunfire broke out just streets away. Other nights the city fell silent in a way that felt even more ominous.
Then, unexpectedly, a message came: a visitor was looking for me. Someone who had been searching. Someone carrying news from my family. Someone who had obtained just enough information—through a chain of unlikely, God-arranged events—to find my building in a city full of hiding places.
He brought a letter. A photo. Supplies. Instructions. Hope.
None of it made sense in human terms. But in spiritual terms, it made perfect sense:
The Lord sends help in ways we don’t anticipate.
I did not know at that moment how close my danger was—or how much closer it would come.
But God knew.
And He was already preparing the next hiding place.
---
There are seasons in life when time slows down and everything becomes watchfulness. Every sound in the hallway, every footstep on the street, every knock at a neighbor’s door feels amplified. You learn to listen with your heartbeat. You learn to pray with your nerves. And you learn what David meant when he said, “In the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.” That verse, from Psalm 57, became something like my internal compass.
After my wife and children left the country, the apartment felt different—emptier, quieter, yet somehow more dangerous. Silence carries its own weight when you’re alone in a city under occupation. I spent a great deal of time in my makeshift hiding space on the top floor, that narrow cave I had carved out behind the stacks of books. It was only big enough for a mat and a little room to sit up. But inside that cramped space, with a flashlight and my Bible resting on my knees, I found a strange sense of sanctuary.
Then danger pressed even closer.
One night, long after curfew, the stillness of the street shattered with the crack of gunfire. Not distant pops and echoes, but sharp, rattling bursts—far too close for comfort. I dropped to the floor instinctively. The windows rattled. Muffled shouts bounced off the buildings. The fighting lasted long enough that you could feel it in your chest, like a pulse out of rhythm. I stayed low, praying quietly, listening for footsteps, engines, anything signaling movement toward the building.
When the noise finally faded, I waited—still, silent—until everything fell back into that heavy nighttime quiet. Only then did I risk returning to my bed, though I barely slept for the rest of the night.
The next evening, I walked back to my apartment from a neighboring building where I’d spent time with a small group of expatriates who were also in hiding. As I turned onto my street, something felt wrong. You learn to trust that inner alertness in times like that. I slowed my pace. The building was unusually bright. My front door was open.
Every instinct screamed to stop.
I stood in the street staring up at the open doorway. The lights inside were all on. Drawers were pulled out. Furniture shifted. Papers scattered. My suitcase lay unzipped on the floor. They had been inside. Soldiers. They had searched everything. They had found my documents. My passport. My identification. My American name.
And I realized something chilling:
If that gun battle the night before had not delayed me—
if I had come home even five minutes earlier—
I would have walked straight into the soldiers who were ransacking my home.
Sometimes God doesn’t just hide you—
He delays you.
He slows you down to save your life.
He uses interruptions, inconveniences, late starts, unexpected detours—
all of them the brushstrokes of His protective hand.
Psalm 121 says, “The Lord is your keeper… The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”
I have never read those words the same way since.
The Resistance contacted me soon afterward and moved me to a safer apartment—not far away, but far enough to break the pattern. The new building sat across from a structure used by the invading forces, which somehow made it safer. Danger in plain sight can be strangely invisible.
From that new location, I spent my days quietly, carefully, trying to stay unnoticed while staying connected with others who were also hiding. Several expatriates had formed a loose community—not physically, but through carefully managed phone calls and hushed visits. The isolation was wearing on some of them. I received a call from a man who had been in hiding for five weeks and hadn’t spoken to another human being in all that time. When he finally whispered hello into the phone, his voice trembled. There is a level of loneliness that goes beyond emotion—it starts to take your strength.
I began to see part of my calling in that season:
not preaching sermons,
not organizing programs,
but keeping people alive emotionally and spiritually.
The ministry God gives you in crisis is rarely the ministry you planned. But it is always the ministry that matters most.
Days turned into weeks. Food supplies became complicated. Local friends who risked their lives to bring basics were sometimes delayed or prevented from reaching certain neighborhoods. I never lost my sense of gratitude for them. Their courage taught me something about kindness—kindness under fire, kindness that risks, kindness that sacrifices. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And in those quiet acts of bravery—bags of bread, bottles of water, whispered updates—I saw that love lived out.
Then, one afternoon, an unexpected message reached me:
Someone wanted to meet me.
A visitor.
A man who had been searching for me for weeks.
Someone connected to people who cared deeply about my wellbeing.
Someone carrying a letter and a photograph from my wife and children.
At first, I was cautious. In times like that, caution becomes a spiritual gift. Every meeting must be weighed. Every contact must be tested.
But the details of his arrival—the improbable chain of connections, the way he found the building, the item he showed me that confirmed his identity—were too precise to be accidental. The way he described his journey made the hairs on my arms stand up. On his flight into the region, he happened to sit next to a man who recognized my name and provided exactly the information needed to find me. No one could orchestrate that except God.
He handed me the letter and the photo. When I saw the faces of my wife and our three young children, smiling from home, something inside me broke open. I had held myself together for so long—keeping myself strong, steady, focused. But now, with their faces in my hands, the distance collapsed into fatherly longing. I felt my throat tighten, my eyes burn.
The visitor gave me supplies, guidance, and encouragement. He was calm, steady, knowledgeable—exactly the kind of presence you hope to see when the world feels unsteady. After sharing vital information and possible plans, he slipped away as quietly as he had come.
I sat alone for a long time after he left, holding that photograph in the dim light.
I prayed for my family.
I prayed for deliverance.
I prayed for clarity.
But mostly, I prayed a simple prayer that kept rising from somewhere deep inside:
“Thank You, Lord, for not forgetting me.”
There is no loneliness like the loneliness of crisis—no fear like the fear of being unseen. When you feel hidden from the world, you fear you might be hidden from God. But that moment reminded me that the God who sees sparrows sees His children—especially in danger.
The days that followed brought a new level of emotional exhaustion. Waiting can be more draining than struggle. Uncertainty can weigh more heavily than fear. Every time I heard footsteps in the hallway, every time a vehicle stopped outside, every time a door slammed, my heart pounded. When danger is near, your pulse becomes a prayer.
Then came news far more devastating than anything I had expected.
A young woman I knew—a local friend—had been captured. She had been helping expatriates quietly, discreetly, courageously. She was kind, compassionate, generous, gentle. I learned that soldiers had discovered who she was—her family connection to national leadership—and they had killed her brutally.
There are moments when grief has no words.
Moments when sorrow becomes a kind of silence.
Moments when the brokenness of this world presses so heavily on your spirit that all you can whisper is,
“Lord, have mercy.”
Psalm 34 became a lifeline:
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves those of a contrite spirit.”
I clung to that nearness.
Because without it, the weight of everything would have crushed me.
It was now late November. Thanksgiving approached—a holiday that suddenly felt far removed from the realities around me. But gratitude is not the absence of danger; it is the presence of God in danger. And that Thanksgiving morning, before sunrise, gunfire broke out again—this time right outside the building where several of us had gathered.
We all knew what gunfire meant: searches. Raids. Arrests.
Each of us had a hiding place ready. We scattered quickly, slipping into crawlspaces, closets, behind walls, up ladders into ceilings—wherever we had prepared to vanish. For two hours I crouched in silence, barely breathing, the sound of soldiers’ boots echoing somewhere on the street.
Finally the chaos settled. We emerged from our hiding spots, shaken but safe. And that afternoon, a small group of us shared a simple Thanksgiving meal. No turkey. No pumpkin pie. Just a shared moment of gratitude in the middle of fear.
Gratitude feels different when it’s stripped down to its essence.
When you’re not thankful for things—
but thankful in spite of them.
That night, close to midnight, I walked back to the apartment the Resistance had given me. Life felt fragile, but something else had begun to rise in me: the sense that deliverance was drawing near.
The shadows were still long.
But there was light behind them.
And God was about to open a door no one else could.
---
Thanksgiving night faded into the early hours of the next morning, and for the first time in months, I sensed that something unseen had shifted. I couldn’t explain it, but it was as if the heaviness in the air loosened. As if the city exhaled. As if heaven had moved one step closer.
But deliverance rarely arrives with fanfare.
It comes quietly.
Like dawn.
Like grace.
Like Psalm 138 says: “In the day when I cried, You answered me, and strengthened me with strength in my soul.”
That verse would prove truer than I knew.
Early the next week, whispers began circulating through the network of those in hiding. Something was happening—something beyond the usual rumors. Soldiers at checkpoints seemed less rigid. Some expatriates reported less harassment. There was talk—unconfirmed, fragile—that Westerners might be released.
We had heard things like this before.
Most of the time, those whispers dissolved into disappointment.
But this time, the tone felt different.
Cautious. Quiet. Hopeful.
Still, hope is a dangerous feeling when you’ve been surviving on caution. Hope can make you careless. Hope can draw you out too soon. So I kept my head down, prayed more than usual, and waited.
Then, one morning, an urgent word reached me:
“Turn on the radio. Listen.”
I did.
There it was.
An official announcement.
Calm. Direct. Unbelievable.
All Westerners in Kuwait would be allowed to leave the country.
It didn’t seem real. You don’t just walk out of captivity after months of hiding. You don’t stroll past soldiers who had spent weeks searching buildings, rounding up people, and tightening their grip. Freedom doesn’t arrive by public announcement.
But apparently, that morning, it had.
As the day progressed, instruction after instruction filtered through the network.
A time.
A place.
A route.
A window of opportunity.
We were told to stay hidden until late afternoon, when the danger would be lower.
I paced the small apartment, wearing a path into the tile floor. My nerves felt electric—hope and fear sparking against each other. I prayed Psalm 18 under my breath again and again:
“The Lord is my fortress… The Lord is my deliverer…”
By late afternoon, word came:
“You can come out.”
I opened the door slowly and stepped onto the landing. The air felt different—still hot, still tinged with the acrid smell of burning rubber and smoke—but lighter. Across the street, two dozen soldiers stood outside their headquarters. They watched, stunned, as expatriates emerged from buildings they had been searching for months.
It was an Exodus moment.
Not dramatic.
Not thunderous.
But holy.
We climbed into cars—some borrowed, some abandoned and revived—and formed a loose caravan. The streets were strangely quiet. No gunfire. No shouting. Just the hollow hum of engines passing burned-out vehicles and shattered buildings.
The city I had come to love looked wounded. Deeply wounded.
Blackened tanks littered intersections.
Shops stood empty.
Glass lay in glittering piles where windows used to be.
The smell of smoke clung to everything.
Yet through the silence and the ruins, I kept hearing a line from Psalm 138:
“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me.”
We drove toward the airport—an airport guarded by the same forces who had held the city captive. My heart pounded with every checkpoint. At each one, soldiers waved us through, sometimes glancing at our faces, sometimes barely looking up. The contrast was surreal. Just days earlier, any one of these stops would have meant arrest.
But that day?
Doors opened.
Barriers parted.
Walls fell without sound.
Not because men changed their minds, but because God had moved them.
When we reached the airport, I stepped onto the tarmac and looked around. The runway shimmered with heat. A plane waited—an aircraft that belonged to the occupying forces, but was, on that day, a vessel of deliverance. I climbed the stairs with trembling hands, found a seat, and let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding for months.
Inside the cabin, the air was tight with tension. No one spoke above a whisper. Every delayed announcement felt like a trigger. Every minute stretched into ten. We waited. And waited. And waited.
A man across the aisle muttered, “He’s playing games with us. Giving hope only to take it back.” Fear does strange things to the mind. It clouds your ability to believe the evidence in front of you.
After nearly five hours—five hours of sitting on the ground at the epicenter of our captivity—the pilot finally announced clearance. The engines surged. The plane lurched forward. And we lifted off.
For the first time in months, the earth beneath me was shrinking instead of closing in.
But deliverance, in my story, came with one last twist.
As we approached Frankfurt, something felt wrong. We circled the city once. Twice. Again. Uncertainty rippled through the cabin. Finally, a steward approached and whispered to me, “We’re having trouble with the wing flaps. One side won’t come down.”
Another man heard the words and groaned, “We escaped war only to crash here?”
Emergency vehicles lined the runway below—lights flashing, engines ready. The pilot brought the plane in for landing, balancing uneven flaps, wrestling the aircraft into submission. The runway loomed larger and larger until—
Touchdown.
Bumps.
Screeching.
A long, breath-holding glide.
And then—
We slowed.
We stopped.
The cabin erupted—not with shouts, but with tears.
In war, survival feels like a privilege.
But deliverance feels like a miracle.
We spent the night in Germany before boarding another flight—this time toward home. When the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., I saw a sight that still burns bright in my memory.
Behind the chain-link fence stood families. Hundreds of them. Waving. Crying. Holding signs. And there—my family. My wife. Our three young children—safe, alive, waiting.
I walked toward them with tears streaming down my face. Every step felt like redemption. Every breath felt like grace.
That night, as we sat together, I whispered a prayer:
“Lord, thank You for every hiding place. Thank You for every delay. Thank You for every unseen mercy.”
Because here is the truth I learned in the shadows of fear:
When you belong to God, you are never unprotected.
You may feel hidden, but you are never forgotten.
You may feel surrounded, but you are never alone.
And you may feel in danger, but you are never out of His reach.
The God who hid me behind closed doors, who delayed me by minutes, who led soldiers past my apartment, who brought a stranger to my door, who steadied a plane with one working flap—
is the same God who walks with you today.
Isaiah 43 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you… when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned… for I am the Lord your God.”
That is not poetry.
That is promise.
That is covenant.
That is deliverance.
You may not be living through a war.
Your enemy may not wear a uniform.
Your hiding place may not be made of boxes in a dusty room.
Your battle might be depression.
Or grief.
Or finances.
Or a broken relationship.
Or fear of the future.
Or memories that still hurt.
Or silence in your marriage.
Or loneliness no one sees.
Or a diagnosis that changed everything.
But hear this:
If God can protect a man in a war zone,
He can protect you in your storm.
If God can guide footsteps past danger,
He can guide you through your uncertainty.
If God can open borders guarded by armies,
He can open doors you cannot open yourself.
If God can bring me home when everything said I wouldn’t make it,
He can bring you through whatever you’re facing today.
The God of Kuwait is the God of California.
The God of deserts is the God of living rooms.
The God of danger is the God of your everyday life.
The God who hides His children also delivers them.
And He will do it again.
---
Conclusion:
There comes a moment in every life when we realize we cannot protect ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot deliver ourselves. We cannot navigate our own storms without the One who hears us “out of His temple,” whose ears are open to our cries.
Today, I invite you to step into the hiding place of God—
the shelter of His care,
the fortress of His promises,
the covering of His love.
Maybe you’ve been walking with fear.
Maybe you’ve been running from something.
Maybe you’ve been hiding for all the wrong reasons.
Maybe you’ve been battered by circumstances you never saw coming.
Step under His wings.
Let Him be your rock.
Let Him be your high tower.
Let Him be your deliverer.
Because the same God who hid me in Kuwait
is ready to hide you—
protect you—
and deliver you—
today.
---
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for every moment You have been our fortress when we didn’t even realize we were under attack. Thank You for protecting us from dangers seen and unseen, for watching over us in the shadows, for guiding us through valleys we didn’t know how to escape. Today, hide Your children under Your wings. Calm their fears. Strengthen their faith. Deliver them from anything that threatens their peace. And lead each heart safely home—held, protected, and loved by the God who never leaves His own. In Jesus’ name, amen.
