September 2020  by Sheologie

Your God Follows You Closely

Praise God that the Holy Spirit is the hound of heaven, and He tracks your path not to exact justice but to offer grace.

Speaking to the Lord in Psalm 139, David wrote,

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You (vv. 7-12).

David was just floored by God. Looking at this passage in context of the first six verses of the psalm, it’s like he was saying, “If God knows my every thought, my every action, then I’m so busted. I have to get out of here.” But then he countered that and said, “Even if I could travel at the speed of light to the farthest part of the earth, He’s already there. He precedes me because He is everywhere present.”

Here’s the good news about not being able to outrun God: He’s always there to help you when you’re hurting, to bring you grace.

I find it interesting that David said, “Even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You” (11-12). Have you ever imagined God coming to you in darkness? Maybe you’re looking up and all you can see from down here is what looks like dark clouds. But Jesus might be coming down in them. As David wrote in Psalm 18,

[God] bowed the heavens also, and came down with darkness under His feet. And He rode upon a cherub, and flew; He flew upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His secret place; His canopy around Him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. From the brightness before Him, His thick clouds passed with hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord thundered from heaven (vv. 9-13).

Maybe God is coming to you today in the darkness of your circumstances. Think about it: Noah discovered the covenant of the rainbow after forty days of rain. Moses received the Ten Commandments in the cloud cover of Mount Sinai. And Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a storm to rescue the disciples. He came to them on the very thing they feared, to show them that He is greater than their fear.

Are you feeling fearful today? God is greater than even your greatest fear. He dwells in the darkness with you. And He follows you closely. He’s always there.

When the prophet Elijah ran for his life from Ahab and Jezebel, do you remember the still, small voice that spoke to him (see 1 Kings 19:11-13)? Maybe today you need to hear that voice remind you of what God said in Hebrews 13: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (v. 5), so that you then “may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear'” (v. 6).