Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.
You can't outrun this love. You've tried. You've moved cities and changed numbers and reinvented yourself and built new lives on new soil — and every time, in the quiet after the unpacking, the same ache returned. Because the loneliness you're running from isn't in the geography. It's in the gap between who you are and who you believe yourself to be. But listen: there is a presence that has followed you to every city, every apartment, every 3am panic, every silent dinner. It was there when you were at your best and it was there — especially there — when you were at your absolute worst. You are not alone. You have never been alone. The aloneness is a feeling. The presence is a fact.
David tries to run through the entire universe to find a place where God isn't. Up — heaven. Down — Sheol. East — dawn. West — the uttermost sea. And in every direction, the same answer: "you are there." Not pursuing. Not chasing. Already there. Waiting. Present. As if the destination and the presence were the same thing.
And that changes the nature of loneliness entirely. Because loneliness says "no one is here." But this Psalm says "someone is always here." The loneliness isn't lying about how it feels — you can feel utterly alone in a presence you can't perceive. But it is lying about the facts. The facts are: you have never been, not for one second since the moment of your creation, actually alone. The loneliness is a sensation. The presence is a structure.
"Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me." Not wave to me from across the universe. Hold me. Grip. Contact. The hand of God on the shoulder of someone sitting alone in a dark apartment at 10pm, wondering if anyone in the entire world would notice if they disappeared. The answer is yes. The answer has always been yes. And the one who would notice isn't distant. He's in the room. He's been in every room. Even the ones you thought were empty.
Psalm 139:7-10
Lonely
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