Every day, everything grabs at you to draw you in, pushing you to keep up with the flow, and shouting in your face to force your concurrence.
Living unprotected in this world is deadly. At the end of life, how much of what's good will we have missed? Much of life can be spent on nothing, lost in confusion and alone. Much of life, but perhaps not all.
If you want a life that's worth the effort, you have to understand the direction the masses are going. You have to have an escape plan. And a refuge.
Find God, and you'll find shelter and hope and help and strength. (That's the objective, non-religious analysis without any biblical quotations.) Life will kill you, it will suck everything good out of you and leave you to die if you don't escape. If you can shelter underneath God's hand, that's the starting point to survival.
That's why we have churches. Not every group that calls itself a church really qualifies, but the real ones are a refuge for us, especially when we've been beaten and bruised by the world's ways. The number of wrong choices that living the world's way can bring is astronomical. The worldly norm of misinformation and prejudice, selfishness and bias, twisted thinking and amorality, all empty like a sewer into our minds. We have no escape, no refuge unless we make our way to God and the place he has set aside just for us, the gathering of those who follow the path God has laid out for them. They will welcome us, gather us in as family, and help us along the way. Some will be wiser than we are, they'll help us understand, and they'll teach us about the journey. Some will be stronger than we are, and they'll teach us to grow and stand strong. Some will be personally familiar with the valleys we've crossed, and they'll lead us by the hand out into the light. We won't have to walk alone any more. That's the real church.
Find God. Take the shelter he offers. That's the safe place, the rear echelon where combatants are cared for, equipped and fed, and it's the base camp from which they advance into life where everything they do matters.
That's the refuge He offers. Don't stop until you find it, the real refuge.