Lord, you have searched me out and know me;
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
….
Where can I go then from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
If I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand will lead me,
and your right hand hold me fast.
This Psalm appeals not just for its poetic imagery, but for its almost whimsical account of a kind of “hide and seek” game with God. Maybe it appeals because that’s a game I’ve played as well. An opportunity to sacrifice time and effort for a truly good cause might arrive at my doorstep, clear as a Divine summons, and I make excuses to “duck service,” simply in order to stay in my comfort zone. Or there might be a moment of family tension or conflict when my speaking up supportively could well bring healing, and I find myself looking for an exit to leave the room. How strange that, even when I know I’m being offered the chance to be more aligned with God’s will, I decide it somehow would be better to leave the moment and hide elsewhere. Stranger still to think just where that “elsewhere” could be?
The Psalmist imagines running away to the far ends of Creation, and even to the end of life itself. But it seems my favorite hiding place is much closer to home: it’s self. Or, at least, a version of myself that’s smaller than the one God had in mind in the moment. It can be a place to hide with so many different rooms: self-absorption, self-righteousness, self-doubt, self-promotion…even (most ironically) self-destruction. And yet the Psalm rightly predicts that no matter the room I choose, God waits for me there. Waiting first to dispel the fears that drove me into smallness, and then allowing me to be unmasked by His love and see the truth of who He created me to be.
The circumstances vary but several constants in this game with God hold fast: I’ve learned that reaching higher ground is a reliable promise of faith, God’s grace even in the smallest hiding places being as available as it is amazing. I’ve learned too how this “inside job” of unmasking the true self God has in mind for me will often test my patience, unfolding as it does on God’s time and not mine. And I’ve learned that to play this “hide and seek” game with God takes humility as much as faith, because I can only emerge from hiding with my imperfection intact; God knows, I’ll be trying to hide again!
The great spiritual teacher and author Joan Chittister says this: “It is the chaos inside of us that is the beginning of a relationship with God.” I believe it also is where our relationship with God waits to be renewed and deepened.
Today’s Psalm also reminds me of a discussion I had with our former Rector Hill Riddle years ago. I was sharing with him how long I’d lapsed from religious practice as a Roman Catholic before discovering Trinity Church as a new spiritual home. He smiled at me and said: “Chased by the hounds of heaven.” That image resonates to this day (dog-lover that I am, I imagine a joyous pack of “man’s best friend” let loose to fetch me from a dark and lonely wood). It makes me wonder if the Psalmist describes not only a conscious flight from God, but also the experience of an attempted indifference to God, of wandering aimlessly in life only to be surprised that the same God has been in steady pursuit. I’ve known what it’s like to be adrift in periods of spiritual “dryness.” To be, as Dylan puts it, “like a rolling stone with no direction home.” Psalm 139 may be as much about being “lost and found” as it is about playing “hide and seek.”
I think it’s possible for us to hide from what God intends for us and not even be aware we are hiding. Or to convince ourselves we’re walking the path in life God has planned for us without being aware we’ve made a wrong turn and might even be gaining speed! But I know ours to be a God indwelling, the God present not only in all of Creation but no less in each and every one of us, having been claimed as His own even as we were “knit in the womb.” From a God this intimate, a God as close to us as breath itself, how can we run and hope to hide, or feel lost without knowing we will be found?
Musical Reflection - That Wasn't Me - Brandi Carlisle
As we celebrate today the Feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the 11th Century Abbott, mystic and leader of the Benedictine Order, let us never doubt the nearness of God when all seems broken and lost in our lives; and let us remember this great Saint’s promise that in turning to Him for direction home, “God will either give us what we ask, or what He knows to be better for us.” Amen
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