Robert Kolb (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.
The phrase “you can run, but you cannot hide” begins a number of popular songs. The expression echoes the words allegedly said by the boxer Joe Louis about an opponent in the ring. It is true that there is no place to hide in such a defined, closed space, but one would think that somewhere in the universe, if not in the depths of some deep cave or as far into the jungle as you can cut your way through the vines, there would be some little hole where no one could find a person. True perhaps in the case of the best of searching parties, but not true for God. There are times when we want to run and hide, and there are times when we get lost in life’s jungles or deserts and long for his company. King David had experienced both feelings. David confessed in Psalm 139 that the Lord had been keeping track of him, both when his tracks showed his hurried pace to escape the Lord’s watchful eye and when his tracks showed him desperately searching for the presence of his God. In this psalm David actually took comfort in knowing that God could find him wherever he happened to end up at the end of any day.
David was not a Deist, one of those who believes that God created the world like a clockmaker, wound up his new product, and walked away, letting it tick away merrily without his having to bother with it. No, David confessed in Psalm 139, God let his presence be known, even and precisely in those instances when he seems to have left our scene. His interest in the product of his mouth never flags or fails. God is intimately involved with every one of his super billions of creatures. He counts hairs on heads of human beings, and he checks out perishing sparrows (Luke 12:6-7). David knew that God does not keep hours, nor does he sit behind some heavenly desk. Like David, Martin Luther insisted that his throne extends to the ends of his creation. Luther knew that the Lord reveals himself when and where and in whatever form he wishes to make his presence known. He does not slumber nor sleep; his wakeful watch stretches through every moment of our own histories and that of the world. He does not reside in temples made by human hands. He is hanging out in the depths of the sea and the thickest of jungle groves.
When we run, when we stray, when we stumble in confusion through strange surroundings and long nights of the soul, our Lord is tracing our footsteps and keeping up with our pace.
David knew that long before he could remember, when he was being knit together in his mother’s womb, God had been with him. He knew that when his enemies, from his patron King Saul to his own son Absolom, had been out to get him, God had been with him. He knew that in the midst of his sinning, as he messed with the lives of Bathsheba and Uriah, God had come to him in the voice of the prophet Nathan. “You are the man” who stole the poor man’s sheep, the prophet said to his friend, the king. In that moment David experienced the painful, killing voice of God that gives life; he knew God was very much present as he was being turned back to his Creator.
No distance, no darkness, no despair could separate David from the love of God and the support of his presence. Neither the length of our journeys nor the intensity of our weary muscles and darkening dusk can wear God out and dim his light. He reports for his watch before we awake, and he lulls us to sleep with his assurance that he will stay the night. Some years ago a group suggested in a new refrain that God is always late, but God is always on time. In the midst of our perceptions that he is disinterested in our dilemmas or on vacation exactly when we most need him, when we think he cannot possibly want anything to do with us after what we have done, then he intrudes with his reminder that he will never forsake us. When we find ourselves offensive and shame drives us into the hidden recesses of our own heart, he shows up, perhaps not as quickly as we had hoped but at precisely the right time.
We can only burst forth in praise as we encounter this God of ours, who has come to be with us as Jesus of Nazareth. Praise acknowledges the magnificence of our God, who shows his glory in his most inglorious, shameful, degrading, and excruciating exposure to ridicule, rejection, and death on his cross. Praise recognizes the majesty of our God, who shaped mountains with their green groves of trees and many-hewed slopes of stone. Our praise grows and glows as he lets sun and storm illuminate their beauty. Praise delights in the marvelous interaction of our God with his human creatures as he guides their histories with his hidden hand when they stray from him and then discover him anew.
Praise so fills us with joy and appreciation of his tremendous power and his boundless love that words seem sometimes not enough when merely spoken. His gifts of rhythm and melody aid us in expressing the awe we feel as creatures dependent on our Creator for all that we are and have. Song strengthens the impact of our rejoicing and our gratitude upon our sense of God’s presence and his overflowing mercy and generosity as he lends his presence to our daily trek through the world he created and still embraces and manages.
The whole life of every believer in Christ is a life of praise, for there is nothing else we can do in the unshakable presence of the Creator and Deliverer. He will not leave us or forsake us, no matter what. There is nowhere else to go but to where he is.