Psalm 114
1 When Israel came out of Egypt, Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
2 Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3 The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back;
4 the mountains leaped like rams, the hills like lambs.
5 Why was it, sea, that you fled? Why, Jordan, did you turn back?
6 Why, mountains, did you leap like rams, you hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool, the hard rock into springs of water. [1]
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What is striking in this psalm is what it says about the presence of God. Judah is God’s sanctuary. God dwells in the midst of His people. As a result, the world around reacts to God’s presence. Even nature itself responds to God’s presence.
How do we think about the presence of God? There are different ways of describing it, or even different modes of God’s presence. On the one hand, God is omnipresent, filling all space. On the other hand, He has identified certain places and times when He is present graciously, such as in His Word or in the Lord’s Supper, or in the gathering of His people. He promised His church His abiding presence even as He withdrew His physical presence.
But He has also promised to make us His dwelling place. To come and live within us. We are temples and sanctuaries of God. This is His covenant presence. He is one with us and dwells within us.
So I think about that when I meditate on this psalm. The very presence of God is going with me today. Wherever I go, God goes because I am His covenant child. In every need He will be there. In every temptation, His strength. In every sin, His forgiveness.
So my prayer is that I may go through this day in the constant awareness that my God goes with me, present within me always.
What is the Word leading you to pray about today?
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[1] The New International Version. (2011). (Ps 114:1–8). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
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