Even There Is Not Even There to God
Psalm 139
“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 night wraps itself around me,’
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.”
– Psalm 139:9 – 12, NRSVUE
While the planet sustains humans’ lives in incredible ways, plenty of its places and ecologies are also too harsh for us. Yet God is in every place. God made every cubic inch.
Psalm 139 lyrically marvels at God’s presence in the places we humans might call our “even theres,” like the middle of a vast ocean, the longest “night” (v. 11), or anywhere we fear that we will be all alone. The psalm gently reminds us that what we might label “even there” is not an “even there” for God in God’s world. God has a way of turning every “even there” into a “hopefully there.”
What “even there” has God turned on its head in your life?
Get the “Advent with the Earth” Devotional PDF
Credits
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version updated edition of the Bible
Image of beach at night is by Luca Bravo on the Unsplash website
