"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." Psalm 139:8, NIV
In Psalm 139, the psalmist writes about how God is all powerful and all knowing. He tells us that there is nowhere that we can go to escape the attention of God. There is nothing that we can think of or know that God has not seen. There is no secrets with God, no unknowns.
A coach at Sam Houston State University for the football team came and spoke at our BSU and referred to this chapter. It was the first time that I had had any exposure to this chapter that I can recall. That was also the first year that I realized that I had problems with fatigue and possible blood sugar problems. To me, when I look at this chapter, I think of those times. It tells me that there is nothing that I am going through that God doesn't see, know about and know the answer for.
Some times when you hear people pray it sounds like they are informing God of what happened. Almost like making a police report. They tell their side of the story to God. But, the thing is, is that God knows the story already. He doesn't need to be informed. But, at the same time sometimes we need to get it off our chest. I don't need to worry though about being misunderstood by God. God sees the problem and already understands the solution. That is really good news because there are times when I do not know what to do.
"You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar, You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord." Psalm 139:3
When I was a chaplain in the nursing home, the administrator and nursing director were roommates. They called me into a meeting one time and said that the director had overheard a phone conversation that I had. She said she picked up another line and heard me make some negative comments about the facility to a activity director who was no longer with the company. The fact of the matter is, that I don't know who she heard talking, but it wasn't me. Not that I didn't have some negative feelings about the nursing home, but I was not guilty of making that phone call. Truth is, I didn't even have that ladies phone number. But, they continued to accuse me of it nevertheless. Until the day when the corporate people came and fired the administrator a few weeks later for falsifying documents.
I could confess my innocence all day long to those two ladies and they didn't hear what I had to say. They didn't believe me because they had already made up their minds about what to do and say. But, I decided to leave the situation in God's hands and went home and prayed for the whole situation. Some time after that both of them were gone. The nursing director walked out the door and I never saw her again. Whatever they wanted to believe about me, God knew the truth. He saw my heart and where it was. He saw what really happened. Sometimes you just have to leave it at his throne and let him deal with things. God may not respond in the quick way he did with my situation, but God will have the final word.
