Psalm 139

I love Psalm 139.

Take these lines:

If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

As this and the preceding lines tell us, even death itself cannot take us out of the grasp of the Lord. And no matter what darkness we insert ourselves into (or we are put in) that darkness is not darkness to the Lord. It is all, in some mysterious way, servant to God's light, and part of it, too.

God is unthwartable, unstoppable, relentless in his pursuit of us. And this is a good thing - for weak as we are, it is so tempting to turn away. To hide from God. To do things that put us at odds with him, in the hope that maybe he'll give up on us.

He never does. He is always there, the shepherd searching for the sheep. We are his, and there's nowhere to hide. Broken and dashed on the shoals, we are his. Mired in quicksand of our own making, we are his. Scattered in the pieces of promises I have made to God and not kept, I am still his - I have no choice. He is God, and he still tells of his love for me, whether I want to hear or not, in so many ways. "I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you"