God is with us wherever we go.
A meditation for High Adventure trips.
Scripture: Psalm 139:1-18.
There are a couple of major reasons why Scouts go on “high adventure” trips. Some of the Scouts will simply be out to have fun. Others will be trying to prove something to themselves: maybe they aren’t sure they can complete a backpacking trek or a wilderness canoe trip or a crawl through a dark cave. When they finish the adventure, they have a new sense of self-confidence. If they can survive on the trail, they might be able to do other things in life that they aren’t sure about.
When we are on a “high adventure” trip, we tend to feel that we are self-sufficient, dependent on our own resources, and it is true that we are self-sufficient compared with most of our life. At home we depend on our family. At school we depend on our teachers, we depend on the cafeteria staff, we depend on the bus drivers. In our daily life we depend on a complex web of people we never even see: people who maintain our water, electricity, and natural gas systems; people who operate our telephone, radio, TV, and internet systems; people who staff and run our hospitals; people who make sure our stores have stuff to sell.
When we go on a “high adventure” trip, we are responsible for our own food, our own transportation, our own shelter, our own “stuff.” Most of the folks we usually depend on are not around.
The one major exception is God. God is with us at all times, including “high adventure.” In the first six verses of Psalm 139, the Psalmist expresses a sense of how well God knows us. God even knows what we are about to say before we say it. This can be either frightening or reassuring, depending on our attitude. If we are trying to get away from God, we need to realize that we can’t. But if we appreciate God’s presence, we can rejoice. The Psalmist rejoices. The Psalmist realizes that God is with us to protect us (see verse 5).
In verses 7-12, the Psalmist shows us that God is with us no matter where we go. A lot of Scouts around the country like to go caving. When we are in the woods or on a lake, we can see evidence of God’s good creation, but in a dark cave it is hard to remember that God is with us. The Psalmist assures us that God is with us even when we make our bed in “Sheol.” “Sheol” is the ancient Hebrew word for a place where the ancient people thought dead people went. “Sheol” is not heaven, and it is not hell, it is just a dreary “warehouse” for dead “souls.” Some might think of it as a dark cave. The Psalmist assures us that even there, even in the land of darkness, God is with us to protect us and help us.
It is good to feel self-confident and to know that we can take care of ourselves in so many ways. It is also important to know that God never abandons us, because if God were to really leave us alone, we wouldn’t be able to survive, no matter how many Scout skills we have.
NOTE: This can be turned into a Bible study, if everyone has a copy of Psalm 139.
--meditation by Richard E. Davies (copyright ©2007).