Another year of Polishing the Pulpit has come to an end. Like every other year that our family has gone, it was amazing. The fact that we returned home and immediately went to our congregation’s family retreat means this past week has been an absolute spiritual feast!
One of my favorite things about PTP is learning small nuggets of truth from God’s word that I had never realized before. One of those came during a class of brother Glenn Colley’s called “Going Deeper in Prayer”. In this class, he spent a little time looking at various prayers in the Bible and examples we can take from them about how we should pray. He specifically went through Psalm 139, but it wasn’t so much an example of prayer in this passage that really stuck with me. Listen to what the psalmist says in Psalm 139:7-12
“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, 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 cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.”
Here’s the little nugget of truth that we were able to pull from this: God is everywhere! The psalmist lists four areas that he goes to where he can find God, but what’s interesting is their locations. If he travels to heaven, God is there. Heaven is above. That represents North. He said that if he goes to Sheol (meaning death), God is there. Going to the grave would be downward, representing South. When he mentions the “wings of the morning”, he is talking about the rising of the sun. That is the East. When he talks about the darkness covering him, he is talking about nighttime when the sun is set. That represents the West.
Literally no matter where we go (North, South, East, or West), God is there. We should take great comfort in that. No matter where we find ourselves, God is there to help us. He will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6, Hebrews 13:5).
God is an amazing helper and master. No matter where we go, He will never turn His back on us. Let us never turn our back on Him.