ANCHOR
TEXT
TENSION
REFLECT
PRAYER
ANCHOR
You've probably faced something and assumed, at least for a moment, that you were facing it entirely alone, in a place God's presence somehow didn't reach.
SCRIPTURE TEXT
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." — Psalm 139:7-10 (NIV)
TENSION
These are rhetorical questions. The psalmist already knows the answer before he asks, marveling at an impossibility rather than testing an escape route. And notice the extremes he names: highest heavens, deepest depths, farthest sea. Not modest, nearby examples, but the most extreme distances he can imagine, all covered by the same guiding, holding hand. For anyone who's ever felt like they were facing something in complete isolation, this passage says that isolation was never actually real, even when it felt certain.
REFLECT
Where have you assumed you were facing something entirely alone, that this passage insists was never actually true?
PRAYER
I've acted sometimes like I was facing this by myself, like You couldn't possibly be in the exact place I was standing. Thank You for a presence I can't actually outrun, even to the edges I imagine. Guide me and hold me fast right here, in whatever this is. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1980, 1983, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.