But then we find this in a Psalm ...
Following up on the previous post regarding the “Absence of the Presence of God”, I thought I’d throw something into the mix that might be something of a counter-point or perhaps reason to think things through a little bit more and dig a bit deeper on my thoughts from that previous post.
I think a lot of us agree that it is possible for us to walk so far away from God that we no longer enjoy His presence, but then we find the following in Psalm 139:
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.If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
[Those were verses 7 – 12 and you can read the entire Psalm here]
I read those verses and had to ask - What then does this mean with respect to my thoughts in the previous post? Is this a direct contradiction to the whole issue of God’s Spirit departing from Saul or is it just more of the author's (David?) experience of his walk with God?
For the author of that Psalm, it seems there was no limit to how far he went away from God for God's presence to still seek him out, for God's grace to still chase after him and bring light into the darkness that he chooses to wrap himself in.
In some way, this feels almost like a paradox of sorts and I'll have to think it through a bit more but there's a part of me that believes both situations to be true ... with qualifications. That when we walk with God, we enjoy his presence wholly and when we walk away from Him, he comes after us but we are not able to immerse ourselves in the fullness of His presence. That God's grace can pursue us to those dark places we choose to walk but what it does is seek to make us return from the darkness. It makes us uncomfortable there, it opens our eyes, it nudges us and sometimes kicks our behinds to wake us up. It brings light into our darkness and our eyes hurt because they are not used to the light and our first instinct is to want the light gone.
In that place we become painfully aware of a part of God's presence but we certainly do not enjoy it. In some ways I think it is part of God's grace to us that we experience only a part of Him in those places of sin and brokenness, that if we encounter God's Holiness in our sinfulness, we would be destroyed. The darkness is destroyed in His light and while we are part of that darkness, we would be destroyed with it too.
I am full of earth, You are heaven’s worth.I am stained with dirt, prone to depravity.
You are everything that is bright and clean -
The antonym of me,
You are divinity.But a certain sign of grace is this:
From the broken earth flowers come up,
pushing through the dirt.[from "Wholly Yours" - David Crowder Band]
I'm still working on my thoughts with this but thought I'd post anyway even if a bit jumbled :-) What are your thoughts? Send them anyway, even if the are still being shaped and formed ... we learn and grow from each other.
Grace & peace,
Deji.