Surrounded

I was finishing up an entry for my devotional journal and taking a moment to sit back in the quiet of my house. The passage I had highlighted for the day came from Psalm 32, near the end of the chapter:

“Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.” (Psalm 32:10)

As I was sitting with my eyes closed, opening my ears and my heart to anything specific I should write about, all I could feel was a sense of the unfailing and merciful love of the Lord. I remembered that same feeling appeared whenever I took a moment to rest in worship and gratitude, saying nothing, but just listening.

There are many things that we can latch onto with concern and worry. It can be related to work or bills, how to deal with school, how to deal with life and the things that fill up the day. The little thing surround quickly and become hard to see past. But these things are smoke and they pass quickly. We do not have to allow the things we are called to do each day become “woes”. We are not surrounded by darkness that will not pass.

What really surrounds us, when we trust it and choose to focus on it, is something eternal and unfailing. It is not insecure or far off, and it does not hold grudges. It is stronger than a schedule and welcomes you when you make room — and it is more patient that what we can conceive. That is what surrounds us. We are human, so sometimes we have to choose to remember and choose to embrace it, but it has no expectations of perfect people. It doesn’t have a schedule that it must adjust to “fit us in”, even if sometimes we feel we have to. The faithful love of the Lord does not have an expiration date.

I always try to do my best to make time and be deliberate, but I also have to remember that I don’t have to try so hard. Maybe some days I feel like allowed myself to become surrounded by irrelevant things, or work, or distractions. Whether or not I did does not matter in the least. He isn’t bound by my schedule or my timetable or my human perception. He doesn’t get distracted.

There are no woes that can creep up that can’t be surrounded and swallowed up by the faithful, merciful love of God. It is not visible to our human eyes, because if it were, we would surely go blind from the amount of warm, affectionate, triumphant light that is constantly around us — even if we forget that it is there.

The next time you feel the surrounding presence of life, take a moment and breathe out. You’ll be surprised at how much of it turns out to be just smoke. And once you have, you’ll realize that Something else has amassed a force around you that no distraction and no amount of failure can repel.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22–23)