Psalms 139:7

God Everywhere

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? Psalms 139:7.

Boys and girls, in the midst of a crowd of school companions does it not sometimes dawn upon you that you are really alone all the time, and that nobody, not even your particular chum, knows much about you? You are all by yourself.

A feeling such as that gave us this Hundred and Thirty-ninth Psalm. It is one of the grandest of all the psalms. When the psalmist wrote it he felt he was all by himself. For the time being the world and its concerns had gone entirely out of his mind. He felt that he was alone and face to face with God. As he thought he wrote, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit. Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?”

Was he afraid, do you think? No, he felt very solemn: for he realized, as he had never realized before, that God knew every thought that was in his mind. God could look him through and through; there was no escape anywhere from His presence. And yet he felt very glad too, for the idea that God was everywhere was a comforting one. It meant that God was caring for him, and that God noticed when he tried to do what was right.

One can understand why some boys and girls are afraid to be alone with God. It may be that they have been doing something they knew to be wrong, and all their lives they have heard God spoken of as Someone from whom they could not hide. “Thou God seest me,” was one of the first texts they learned.

There is a well-known story of a poor girl who went to steal apples in a loft. On the wall of it there hung the portrait of some long-forgotten ancestor of the house. When she crept along the garret floor the eyes of that old portrait followed her until, in her fear, she went and tore them out.

Why should we be afraid of having God's eye upon us? If we want to do what is right it ought rather to help us. In one of his novels Lord Beaconsfield tells of an old tutor who, having completed the education of a young heir of a noble house, took him, before parting from him, to the picture gallery of the castle. Then, having told his pupil of the virtues that had distinguished all his line, he implored him to acquit himself as a worthy son of such worthy sires.

Again, there was at one time in Brighton a very saintly minister called Frederick Robertson. A certain shopkeeper there had a portrait of him hung in his back shop. And whenever he was tempted to do a mean thing he went and looked for an instant at the photograph and then the mean thing became impossible

“Please, Miss, will you let me have home that little picture for a week?” a young boy belonging to a mission class said to his teacher, who had been talking seriously to him. It was a little picture she prized, but she took it from its nail on her sitting-room wall when he added, “It will keep me straight when I look at it.” Boys and girls, it was a picture of the Good Shepherd going after the poor single lost sheep upon the mountains.

For although God sees you always, and keeps watching you, it is in love that He does it. If He seems hard at times, it is because He knows what giving way to sin will mean for you. A good mother can have a searching eye when she thinks any of her children want to deceive her. God has in Him something of the mother; His love for you is unchanging. Even when you would fain get away from Him, He follows you. It is.as if He would say, “I can never give you up.”

Think of the ever-present God, then, as one who loves you and wants you to do what is right. To try to escape from Him, even when you have done wrong, is to flee from the best Friend you have.