Faith in a Time of Pandemic – Where Can I Go From Your Spirit

CXIII
Where Can I Go From Your Spirit?
(7/18)

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? (Psalm 139:7)

God’s presence is everywhere. God’s love encompasses every moment of our lives. Wherever we are, God with us. The Psalmist adds,

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
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.

Years ago, when I was a university chaplain at Georgetown University, one of my congregants asserted, “God goes to Georgetown, too.” It was her way of saying that in this new place, the university, where everything is different, God is already here. No place is outside God’s care. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, as Bonaventure says.

o, God will be with you at home, the supermarket, the doctor’s office, and even in the hospital. Joyful or sad, God is with us.!
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Remind us, O Loving God, that we are always in your care. Nothing can separate us from your love. Wherever we go, we are in your hands. Amen.