Wednesday 1st July - Being Known and Surrounded

DAILY BYTE

The Reverend Canon Sam Wells says that in all actions – every sitting, every standing – every good day, every bad day – every time we feel close to God and every time we feel distant, we are seeking to be God’s companions.

Companions strive to have a real, honest, open relationship with God. Companions try to realize that God does know our past, does know our future, but chooses to live with us in the present, regardless how painful, how frustrating, or how filled with joy.

Rashi is a second century rabbi and scriptural commentator who writes that verse 2 of Psalm 139 reads, “You discern to make me a companion from afar,” to “draw me to Your companionship,” “your endearment.”

God does, indeed, see and understand us in our struggle, if we’re feeling accused, downtrodden, or merely exhausted. God then draws us to Himself because God loves us through all these ways of dying and rising in everyday life.

The psalmist then writes, “You search out my path - you scrutinize it, measure it…and are acquainted with all my ways.” How especially intimidating this statement is!

To think that God scrutinizes or “surrounds our path,” as Rashi writes. To think that as people who are companions walking with God, God is familiar with everything we do and everything we are – that God surrounds us with Scripture, with friends, with God’s own Holy Spirit, to raise us up to see and be honest, transparent people, to be the people God knows and desires us to be.

Have you ever had someone tell you something about yourself and then realize 1. that you never acknowledged such a thing about yourself before, and 2. that they are right?

That for better or worse, you are, indeed, who they say you are, even though you’d never noticed or wanted to admit it. It is both strange and wonderful that God already knows all the things we know about ourselves, all the things others notice about us, and all the things deep in our souls that no one knows at all.

The psalmist writes, “you are acquainted with all my ways.” All of them. Not just the ones we want people to see. Not just the ones we hide - but all of our ways. All of the ways we’ve been in the past. All of the ways we’ll be in the future. And, all of who we are now, in this moment, as we talk to God, saying GOD, YAHWEH, you alone, know me!

And we respond, I am your companion – with everything that you know about me, help me to walk with you.

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

Psalm 139:2 (Rashi)

You discern to make me a companion from afar.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Loving God, help me to be your companion. Surround me with people who can encourage and love me, and surround me with your Word so that through all things I am and do and experience, I will find comfort in the fact that you know me and that you know who I can become, as I walk with you. Amen.