Just Keep Swimming

Just Keep Swimming

            Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence? Psalms 139:7

Imagine a fish swimming through the ocean. It swims through calm tidal pools and into underwater caves. It swims through reeds and kelp and darts past predators. It takes its food and its oxygen from the water. It would be absurd for the fish to ask, “Where is the water”? The water is all around and even in the fish. If the fish said, “There is no water here”, it would not make it true. The water provides the nourishment, refreshment and hiding places the fish needs.

Similarly, God is all around an even in us. He gives us shelter from the storm. He is with us in the hard times and the good times. Today was one of the hard times and I just wanted to crawl into a spiritual underwater cave and not come out. I was tempted to believe that God has left me in my pain, but I  know that He has not. The psalmist says,

            Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.   Psalms 139

                If you are swimming through dark, murky waters right now, take courage. You may be tempted to question where God is, but he is in you and all around you. Ask Him to give you eyes to see and ears to hear.