4th. May. 2020. Daily Devotion.

Do you feel hemmed in by the current lockdown? I am sure that many people do, and as we note from the news there are places where people are protesting vociferously about it. It is probably true that throughout most of our lives we are hemmed in by many things; by everything from the circumstances of our birth, to the limitation of our bodies, our talents and abilities, our choices, and so forth.

Psalm 139:1-18; 23-24
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,’
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand –
when I awake, I am still with you.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139 puts our life and our faith into perspective within eternity. Here are some comments by Max Lucado:

“You and I are governed. The weather determines what we wear. The terrain tells us how to travel. Gravity dictates our speed, and health determines our strength. We may challenge these forces and alter them slightly, but we never remove them.

God—our Shepherd—does not check the weather; he makes it. He does not defy gravity; he created it. He is not affected by health; he has no body. Jesus said, “God is spirit” (John 4:24). Since he has no body, he has no limitations—equally active in Cambodia as he is in Connecticut. “Where can I go to get away from your Spirit?” asked David. “Where can I run from you? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I lie down in the grave, you are there” (Psalm 139:7–8).

All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old. Psalm 139:16
no person lives one day more or less than God intends. “All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old.” But her days here were so few …His life was so brief …

To us it seems that way. We speak of a short life, but compared to eternity, who has a long one? A person’s days on earth may appear as a drop in the ocean. Yours and mine may seem like a thimbleful. But compared to the Pacific of eternity, even the years of Methuselah filled no more than a glass …
In God’s plan every life is long enough, and every death is timely. And though you and I might wish for a longer life, God knows better!” From Traveling Light

Two things stand out to me. First, David acknowledges that God, being aware of everything about his life, has hemmed him in, possibly to remind him of his dependence on God.

Second, God is never absent from his life, his life is on course with God who knows its beginning and its end, and he is there with him, hemmed in though he may be.

Perhaps when we surrender to the limitations of our circumstances, we may discover God within them and be at peace in the knowledge that he is with us always.

Prayers

Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I do love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.
Amen. Charles Eugene de Foucauld.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever.
Amen. –Reinhold Niebuhr