Presence in Psalm 139
What does it mean to connect more deeply to God, self and the world around us? I believe it comes from simply showing up with all of who we are in each of our daily encounters. As Abraham Herschel shares: “Just to be is the blessing; just to live is holy.” Psalm 139 speaks so clearly of how deeply God is present to us in our being. I invite you to ponder this adaptation of the psalm by Kevin Yell, a spiritual director and retreat minister in our area.
Reading Psalm 139 (slightly adapted) by Kevin Yell
You have searched me, O Lord, and you know me. 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, Lord, know it completely.
And still you love me.
Sometimes that’s scary, to be loved, to be known so unconditionally.
I can’t cope and want to run away But 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 and settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
No escape! If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and make 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.
No escape!
And so I give in, I surrender to your love for me, your foolish, enormous love for me.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
You do not make mistakes – though sometimes I feel like one.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body and you loved me;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
When I sleep I rest in you, and when I awake, I am still with you.
There is No escape – and for that I thank you!