Ever-present-ness – Psalm 139

A text – Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
139:7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
139:8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
139:9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
139:10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
139:11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”
139:12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
139:24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

A reflection:

Is God ever-present? If you say yes, this is a less common thought today than perhaps when the psalmist was writing.

How comforting is the idea of an ever-present God? This depends on how you think about yourself and also on what kind of God you have.

If I’m thinking of myself (a grown-up person), I might not want God knowing my every thought, my every move. I might feel truly hemmed in, as in verse 5, and not in a good way but in a smothering sort of way. I might indeed ask where I can go to get away from God because I might really want to.

But now ask me, as a grandma, whether I want God to be ever-present with my young grandson, knowing what he’s doing and when he’s about to fall off something…that is a different story. I may love the ever-present-ness of God as God guides my young and wonderful boy. I may want the right hand of God to hold him fast. Really I may.

And the very notion that God, the Creator of the Universe, should be mindful of us humans and our whereabouts, our doings, our fleeings, and our homecomings, whether we are aged 5 or 75 — this notion is amazing. We do want to ask God to search and know our hearts, to find any wickedness, and to lead us in the way everlasting. We do want to be right with such a God. We need to learn to walk with God’s ever-present-ness.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for sticking by us day and night, up or down, north or south, whether we want you there or not. You are our mighty God, and we want to be led in the right way. Help us to remember that you and your love are close by, no matter what.   Amen.