Jump Start # 1222

Psalms 139:7-10 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell I the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.”

  There is no escaping God. That’s what David said in this passage and that’s what the proof of the Scriptures show us. Remember Adam and Eve? They thought they could hide from God. He found them. And, Jonah? He thought he could go so far in the other direction that God would leave him alone. Wrong. Private conversations are revealed in the Scriptures. Those chilling words from the prophet to King Hezekiah, about getting his house in order because he was going to die, are known by the world because God recorded them. Jesus knew the thoughts of the multitudes and often challenged them about why they were reasoning a certain way in their hearts.

There are two sides to our passage. A negative and a positive.

First, the negative. There is no escaping God’s eye. He knows. He sees. Our secrets are not secret to God. The things we whisper, He hears. What we think no one will ever know, He knows. There is no covering up with God. There is no shocking nor surprising God. He already knows. You cannot escape the eye of God. We lie to one another to escape responsibility and trouble. We fudge the truth. We bend the rules to our liking. We become pretty good at getting around things we don’t want to do. God knows. You cannot dodge things with God.

Second, the positive, God’s hand will lead me and His right hand will lay hold of me, any where I am. Sitting in a college classroom, listening to a professor ramble on about the hypocrisy of religion, God’s hand will lead me. Sitting in a hospital, getting a CAT scan, God’s hand will be there. Sitting in traffic, God’s there. Up in the middle of the night with a baby that will not sleep, God’s up. His hand will lead me. Walking into the funeral home to view the remains of your spouse for many years, God is there. He’s waiting for you. At the ballgame, where the beer flows like a river, God is there leading you. At a concert, a movie, a theme park, the nursing home, and even the church building, God is there. In the belly of the whale, Jonah was not alone. God was there. Hiding behind some shrubs, Adam was not alone, God was there.

Our passage tells us that not only is God there, His hand leads us. He leads us to righteousness. He leads us to doing the right thing. He leads us to right thinking and right words. We often find ourselves in places that are very uncomfortable for us. Our hearts want to do right, even in those places. We pray for wisdom, insight and the right words to say. We pray that our lights might shine. Are we alone? No. God is with us. He leads us. God doesn’t talk to us as He did Abraham. God doesn’t send us divine dreams as He did with Joseph. God doesn’t inspire us as He did the apostles. But don’t think for a minute that He has left you on your own. The great shepherd Psalms, Psalms 23, where God leads besides quiet waters, restores the soul, and makes us lie down in the green pastures—still happens. God is still there. Through the word of God, we learn, believe and know God. That living word works upon our conscience. It doesn’t stay idle within us. Those words move us, challenge us, make us feel guilty, encourages us, strengthens us and builds hope within us. We see right and wrong. We know what we ought to do. We are driven to speak out and defend when others humiliate our Savior. Those words become the foundation that holds us together through storms and difficulties. God’s word—alive, active and working within us, is the means that God has to lead us.

So, the more of God’s word that is in me, the more I will be led by God. The more my heart is open, tender, listening and honest, the more God leads me. My relationship with God is based upon my knowledge of God and that comes from the word of God. This is not feeling based, it is Scripture based. It doesn’t change when I’m having a good day or a bad day. It doesn’t change when I am tired or when I am rested. It doesn’t change with my moods or how people treat me. Feeling based religion can’t say that. It’s all based upon the moment and feelings. When one is feeling down or distant, then that is how God is perceived  to be. This is why feeling based religions emphasize the feelings. Worship services are comedy clubs and pep rallies including the loud, thumping music that feeds emotions. Folks feel pumped up for Jesus. They are ready to climb the steeple and dance across the parking lot. Frenzied religion makes a person feel good. This is why it is so popular today. But when one is sitting alone in that emergency room of the hospital and their loved one is clinging to life, all that pumped up religion is no where to be found. Doubts take over. Fear and worry dominate. No comedy now. No bands to play now. Just you sitting alone with your faith and you are finding out that your faith was in fun and music and crowds and good times and not so much in God. Now you wonder. Now you have questions. Now you need God but you don’t know where to turn to. You haven’t built a faith upon Scriptures. It has been a faith built upon amazing church services. Alone, you’ve not known the story of Job in detail. Alone, you don’t remember the disciples in the terrible storm. Alone, you don’t know Jesus praying to His Father in the garden before the cross. Alone, you feel that you are the only one who has been this way. Alone, you feel abandoned. Alone, you hurt and do not know that God is with you. God wants to lead you. God has never deserted you. A religion of feeling is shallow, temporary and has no answers for the storms in life.

All of this reminds us that it is time to open the Bible and spend some time in the Scriptures with God. It is time to build a faith that is Scripture based. It is time to know and understand God’s purpose for each of us.

He is there. He has always been there. We just didn’t see Him because our eyes of faith were not opened.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? No where. What a blessing. God is here. He is with you today.

Roger