Daily Manna · Day 122 · May 2
Inescapable Presence
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”
Where would you really go if you wanted to get away from God?
The psalm asks that as a real question: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" Then David answers it the way a man checks every exit in a building. He tries heaven. He tries hell, which here means the grave. He tries "the wings of the morning," which most likely means the east, where the sun comes up. He tries "the uttermost parts of the sea," and since the sea lay to the west of Israel, that means the far west. So he goes up, down, east and west, and every door opens onto the same face.
Notice what the psalm does not do. It does not apologize for the question. David wanted to get away, and the psalm never scolds him for wanting it. It simply reports what his search turned up: "Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." The hand that met him at every exit is the hand that leads him and holds him.
So the question turns around and comes back to you. It is no longer where you could go. It is what you expect to find when you get there. One person reads this psalm and feels cornered. Another reads the same words and feels carried. Both are reading the same fact: there is nowhere God is not. The psalm gives you that fact and lets the rest of you catch up to it. And the hand you meet in every place is the one that leads you and holds you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 122 is Looking Back (Luke 9:62).