He Does Not Forget

Have you ever felt like God has forgotten you? That He has lost your address? That as you try to make your way through life, tossed to and fro by contrary winds, it is as if He has disappeared into the night and your prayers are met with nothing but deafening silence? During the different seasons of our lives it is the responsibility of the Adversary to bring doubt and fear into our minds and, for the most part, he does a very good job at it. Those dark periods in our lives challenge our faith and belief in God's goodness and care. Some of us are able to keep trusting God in the dark; others are overcome by it and are left confused, hurt, and bitter towards Him.

The psalmist David was quite open in telling God exactly how he felt. Whether he was extolling the virtues of God, complaining about his enemies, or expressing feelings of loneliness and despair, we have the benefit of reading his psalms and often times find ourselves able to identify with him. In Psalm 139 he sings about the omniscience and omnipresence of God, and for those of us who have experienced or are experiencing a dark season in our lives, we take specific note of verses 7 to 12: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." In other words, because God is omnipresent, everywhere at the same time, we are never out of His sight and as such we are never out of His care.

However, as we see in the preceding verses, the psalmist also recognizes something equally important; that God knows him and everything about him. So much so that every word he spoke was known to Him, and his every thought understood. Eugene H. Peterson, in The Message, paraphrases it this way: "I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence" (vv. 2-4). This kind of knowing transcended superficiality and gives us an insight into the level of intimacy, into-me-see, that God shows when it comes to us His children.

Even if the devil would tell us otherwise, we can be comforted by the fact that just as God knew David and everything about him, the very same way He knows us and everything about us. Just as David recognized that he could never be out of His presence, we too can be assured that even during the dark seasons of our lives we are never out of His sight. David realized "darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you" (v.12, The Message). This should resonate within each and every one of us because it tells us there is nowhere, no situations we can or could find ourselves in, and that there is no time that we are ever out of His view. The truth is that despite the seemingly unanswered prayers, the winds of contrariness blowing in your life or the dark season you are walking through, God has not lost your address. He hears you; He knows exactly where you are. Ponder those thoughts and be encouraged by them. He has everything about you under control.