This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 56, “Hemmed in by God”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/hemmed-in-by-god
One of the videos from Connected Families’ new course, Sensitive and Intense Kids, shared a short word of encouragement from Lydia Rex, who we heard from on Moms Take Ten a couple of weeks ago. As I was sitting on my bed, her words washed over me and I knew that it needed to become an episode. She shared from Psalm 139, but in a way that I don’t think I have thought of before. Let’s take a look at the passage now.
Psalm 139, verses 1-6 says,
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.”
This is a beautiful passage that I am sure you have heard many times. Isn’t it amazing that the God of the universe knows us so personally and intimately? He cares about us. This is not a passive passage about a god who merely looks on our lives with curiosity. This is an active passage about the Lord of all who is intentionally involved in our lives with love and grace and goodness.
The verse that Lydia focused on was verse 5. It says, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” I have often thought of this verse as one about protection from what is happening around me, and about guidance. God is encircling me, you, and his hand is upon us to lead us where we should go.
I think about where I should go a lot, what I should be doing, who I should be. Some of that is forced upon me. The new year is barely upon us and registration is already opening up for school next fall, day camps in the summer, and park district programs in the spring. I have come to realize that I have to schedule my kids’ medical and dental appointments months in advance if I want to get good times.
Then there are the worrying thoughts of the future such as: will my kid ever learn how to manage his aggression? What is she going to be like as a teenager if she argues this much now?
The worrying thoughts usually circle back around to past events of the day, week or month. I think about the things I should have done differently, especially the parenting moments that went really poorly. I replay conversations, and difficult interactions, wishing I could fix them, or relive the emotions of the moment as though it was happening again.
What is ironic, I realize, is that I often feel as though my kids aren’t allowing me a single thought, and yet all of these past and future thoughts are still flowing through quite freely. I did a quick Google search on the matter and found incredibly inconsistent results on how many thoughts a day people have, data stating anywhere from 6,000 to 70,000 thoughts. I think moms probably are at the 70,000 mark. We have so much we need to think about and so much we are thinking about that we probably shouldn’t be.
This is where Lydia’s video spoke to me. She said, speaking of verse 5, “What this says to me is that God is in the past, he is there with us. All the failures and things we wish we would have known, and difficulties, all the things that you’ve come through already–God can bring healing through all of that. He sees it. He’s there with you. And he’s in the future too. There’s not a thing ahead of you that God is not already ten steps ahead of. He’s there.”
She then makes the point that if you are being hemmed in by God, and he is in your past, and he is in your future, then that means that you are hemmed in to the present. That is where he wants you and me to be.
We see this throughout Scripture, don’t we?
Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Jesus says in Matthew 6:25-34,
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
James 4:13-15 says, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Remember how in the wilderness, God provided the manna and the quail needed for each new day only? Jesus references this in Matthew 6:11 when he is teaching the disciples how to pray–”give us this day our daily bread.” We are not to live in the past, and we are not to fixate on the future. We are to be present in the moment we are in.
More than that, Psalm 139 also shows how we are being hemmed into the presence of God. He would not be able to lay his hand upon us if he was not with us. That hand is not just to move us in a certain direction, though he certainly does direct us. His hand speaks reassurance and hope. I think of the hand that I lay on my child’s shoulder when he is struggling and I want to offer comfort and the assurance that I am there with him in it.
Hebrews chapter 4 speaks of what we will find in the presence of the Lord when the author says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Isaiah 41:10 promises, “fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Then, a couple chapters later, in Isaiah 43,
“But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.””
I could go on to read from Deuteronomy, Joshua, Psalms, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, James, and even Revelation. The entire Bible declares who God is and what it is to be in relationship with him. That is where we are, that is where we get to be.
Stop for a moment mama, in whatever you are doing and feel the hand of the Lord gently yet firmly resting upon your shoulder as he encircles you. He is before you. He is behind you. He is with you. You can release the past to him. You can entrust the future with him. You can live today in the power of his strength and supported by his grace.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.”
Lyssa Stoyko 