Always Growing when the World is Hard

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

                                                Psalm 139:23-24

At some point in our lives, we all seem to have a moment when we realize that our parents (or other early caregivers) had a life before us. I remember when I was 10 years old or so and my mom had foot surgery. She had been a toe dancer when she was younger and needed replacement joints in her big toes.  

I remember thinking, Wait. What? My mom was once a ballerina?!

Before that moment, we mostly assume that our parents exist to take care of us. They have jobs and go to the grocery store and lead pretty boring lives and in return, they get to stay up past our bedtimes. It rocks our worlds, to some extent, to envision our parents doing things without us, living without us. 

Our early caregivers are designed to be a refuge, a shelter, a shady tree to sit beneath and grow when we are young so that when we are older, those memories and that shade will give us strength for the race and the battle that is adult life. Some of us got that shade a bit longer than others, some of us lived with both the shade and the shadow of the world’s challenges even when we were very young, and others of us, unfortunately, got a whole lot less shade, shelter, and refuge than we needed.

Still, at every age and every stage, we are tucked into the hiding place of God.

Since the moment light was called into being and the waters were formed, God’s arms have been a shelter from the world.

Some of the most comforting Bible verses speak of God’s shelter or safety, and the psalms, in particular, are full of the visual picture of God as our refuge:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

Psalm 91:1-2

Be to me a rock of refuge,
    to which I may continually come;
you have given the command to save me,
    for you are my rock and my fortress.

Psalm 71:3

 God is our refuge and strength,

A very present help in trouble.

Psalm 46:1

For he will hide me in his shelter
    in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
    he will lift me high upon a rock.

Psalm 27:5

And of course, Psalm 139:7 –

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence? 

God is our hiding place when the days are sunshine and the years are full of joy.

God is our hiding place when the world is hard.

It can be easy to read the end of Psalm 139 very differently. Initially, it seems that God searching and knowing our thoughts, especially when we are going through a hard time, is a terrible idea. How often do we hesitate to lay our thoughts, our emotions, or our mental health challenges before God … because then … He would know?

The textual note on Psalm 139:23 in most Bibles offers a useful clarifier: “know my thoughts!” in Psalm 139:23 may also be translated from the Biblical Hebrew as “know my cares!” There is possibly a vast difference for our understanding when we consider offering our cares to God, our struggles, our temptations, versus simply our thoughts. While they are both true, it is the knowledge that God cares about our cares that changes the picture so that we can begin to offer Him all of our thoughts. We might begin by praying, “Dear God, know all that concerns me, know all that sits on my chest and weighs heavy on my heart. Lord, know my anxiety, know my burden, know my doubt. Lord, know my inner critic and my wounds and all that tempts me. Lord, know me.”

While our concerns and cares are often thoughts, it is good to recognize that we and our experiences are more than the sum total of what we thought about today or what concerns us now. When the world is hard, it’s especially easy to have thoughts that ruminate and roll around and fight for space in our heads. We can feel beaten down by the very gift God intended to bring us confidence and the shelter of His shade.

 And still, God is our hiding place.

Throughout our whole lives, God tucks us into Him, especially when the world disappoints. He holds us in our mothers’ wombs. He holds us in our caregivers’ arms, or in the lack thereof. He holds us in our fight for independence. He holds us when we hit our stride, when we wrestle with change, when we pray for the new season to come and when we mourn the last. He holds us when our hearts break and when our bodies fail us.

As we come to the end of our study of Psalm 139, I have one task for you. Look once more at Psalm 139 as a whole. Sit back and relax. Take a deep breath. Read Psalm 139 one more time and imagine how God has tucked you in during the different ages and stages of your life. Imagine how God provided shade when you were young, shelter as you grew, and refuge when the season made you weary. Share in the comments one way you can see God sheltering you today, but also a way you can see God sheltered you yesterday or a hundred yesterdays ago, and then share one way you can imagine God sheltering you tomorrow.

God is our hiding place and we are always growing.

GROWTH QUESTIONS:

How is God sheltering you today?

How has God sheltered you when you were small?

How might God shelter you in your concerns about the future?

Up Next: The Always Growing online study of Psalm 139 comes to a close with this study post. Thank you for participating in one, two, or all the segments. You can continue to learn and grow with us as we continue our discussion of lifespan development with Always Growing in Friendship: Intimacy v Isolation.