Good morning!
I hope this day finds you and your family well. I invite you to take a few moments with me to read and reflect upon today’s scripture selection — and to carry these thoughts with you into your day.
Today’s Scripture: Psalm 139
For the music leader. Of David. A song.
139 Lord, you have examined me.
You know me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I stand up.
Even from far away, you comprehend my plans.
3 You study my traveling and resting.
You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways.
4 There isn’t a word on my tongue, Lord,
that you don’t already know completely.
5 You surround me—front and back.
You put your hand on me.
6 That kind of knowledge is too much for me;
it’s so high above me that I can’t reach it.
7 Where could I go to get away from your spirit?
Where could I go to escape your presence?
8 If I went up to heaven, you would be there.
If I went down to the grave,[a] you would be there too!
9 If I could fly on the wings of dawn,
stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean—
10 even there your hand would guide me;
even there your strong hand would hold me tight!
11 If I said, “The darkness will definitely hide me;
the light will become night around me,”
12 even then the darkness isn’t too dark for you!
Nighttime would shine bright as day,
because darkness is the same as light to you!
13 You are the one who created my innermost parts;
you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.
14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
15 My bones weren’t hidden from you
when I was being put together in a secret place,
when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my embryo,
and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me,[b]
before any one of them had yet happened.[c]
17 God, your plans are incomprehensible to me!
Their total number is countless!
18 If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand!
If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you.[d]
19 If only, God, you would kill the wicked!
If only murderers would get away from me—
20 the people who talk about you, but only for wicked schemes;
the people who are your enemies,
who use your name as if it were of no significance.[e]
21 Don’t I hate everyone who hates you?
Don’t I despise those who attack you?
22 Yes, I hate them—through and through!
They’ve become my enemies too.
23 Examine me, God! Look at my heart!
Put me to the test! Know my anxious thoughts!
24 Look to see if there is any idolatrous way[f] in me,
then lead me on the eternal path!
Tim’s Devotional Reflection for Today
In the affirmation of faith we most often recite in worship, we end with these words:
God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
Even in the times of illness, the time when an accident has left us weakened or broken, even in those times that harm us and hurt us, God is present, and God can bring good out of the worst of circumstances. In all our times of struggle and challenge, God is with us. Psalm 139 celebrates that.
And here’s something else about Psalm 139 to consider. When you take a closer look at this scripture, you wonder whether the author wants to flee from this nearness of God. Was the psalmist doing his dead level best to flee God, but then found it impossible? Wherever he went and whatever he did, there God was. Note the sentence in verse 5: “You surround me — front and back.”
The Hebrew verb “surround” can have the sense of “besiege” or “confine,” as well as “protect.” The psalmist acknowledges being fully known and therefore fully vulnerable.
Do you sense the psalmist’s mixed feelings about that?
Jesus’s parables of the prodigal son, the lost sheep, and the lost coin in the gospel of Luke are parables about our God who constantly seeks us, even when we are unaware of it — and even when we purposely flee from God, the “Hound of Heaven.”
Perhaps no one has captured that sense of being pursued by God than Francis Thompson in his 1909 poem, “The Hound of Heaven.”
I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind and in the mist of tears I hid from Him,
and under running laughter, up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated, down Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Which way would we rather have God—far off or near?
If we’re honest, that depends. Sometimes we want God on our own terms. We want the comfort, but not the challenge. Another way to put it is “God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.”
When I think about this idea, Susan Werner’s song “Did Trouble Me” often comes to mind.
When I closed my eyes so I would not see, My Lord did trouble me.
When I let things stand that should not be, My Lord did trouble me.
When I held my head too high too proud, My Lord did trouble me.
When I raised my voice too little, too loud, My Lord did trouble me.
Did trouble me
With a word or a sign,
With the ringing of the bell in the back of my mind.
Did trouble me,
Did stir my soul,
For to make me human, to make me whole.
When I slept too long, slept too deep, My Lord did trouble me.
Put a worrisome vision into my sleep, My Lord did trouble me.
When I held myself away and apart, My Lord did trouble me.
And the tears of my brother did move my heart, My Lord did trouble me.
Did trouble me
With a word or a sign,
With the ringing of the bell in the back of my mind.
Did trouble me,
Did stir my soul,
For to make me human, to make me whole.
In the greatest times, in the tragic times, in the times of peace, and in the times of turmoil; in the times when our direction seems very clear — and in the times when our direction is fuzzy; in the times when our lives are full of relationships and friends — and the times when we feel lost and lonely, God is with us.
And God is also with us to trouble our souls when we are complacent and when we let things stand that should not be, God is right there to stir our souls; to make us human, to make us whole. In other words, going back to that familiar creed,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
Thank you for sharing this early moment of your day with me, with God, and with the words and reflections I hope you will carry with you throughout the coming day and night.
Grace and Peace,
Dr. Tim Bruster
Senior Pastor
