July 10 | Bible in a Year: Job 41-42; Acts 16:22-40

God Is There

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. Psalm 139:8

When my grandmother was gently informed that my grandpa would pass away in the next few days, we were concerned that she’d be upset and anxious. “Are you worried?” someone asked her, thinking that she might have questions about her husband’s physical condition or need help for her own needs. She thought for a moment. “No,” she calmly answered, “I know where he’s going. God is there with him.”

Her expression of God’s presence with her husband echoes a similar one in Psalm 139 made by the psalmist David: “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (v. 8).

Although the certainty of God’s presence described in Psalm 139 carries a subtle warning that we can’t escape His Spirit no matter where we go, it also brings great comfort to those who love Him and desire the assurance of His presence: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence” (v. 7). As God’s redeemed people, we can be consoled that no matter where we are, He’s there guiding us and holding us in His hands (v. 10).

When we go through tough, worrisome situations and don’t feel that God is with us, we can be assured that He’s present with all those whom He loves and who love Him. May this knowledge of His certain presence bring you the comfort and hope you need today.

By Jasmine Goh

REFLECT & PRAY

What worries you most today? How does knowing the certainty of God’s presence help you?

Dear God, when I’m worried, please help me to know that my life is in Your hands.

Be assured that God is with you as you listen to the Our Daily Bread Evening Meditations tonight.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT

It’s impossible for us to fathom the scope of God’s all-seeing eye and the inescapability of His presence, but David attempts to do just that. Set in four stanzas, his song begins with his acknowledgment of just how intimately God knows him: “you are familiar with all my ways” (Psalm 139:3). He starts the next section with parallel rhetorical questions: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7). The farthest reaches of space won’t permit us to hide from this God, nor will death itself. This is the implication of David’s reference to “the depths” in verse 8. The psalmist even praises how God knew him when He “knit [him] together in [his] mother’s womb” (v. 13). Such a pervasive presence might well intimidate us if not for the fact that this is our all-wise, omnipresent, all-seeing, and perfectly loving God.

Tim Gustafson

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