Presence and The Sea

Here's a fun story.

First night here and I'm settling into the guest house.  The attendant is showing me around, and I tell her it's okay, I slept in this very room for three months once.

I am back at the guest house two properties over this time.  There's another one very conveniently right next door, but apparently it wasn't available.  So here I am, just a tad further away, but very familiar and comfortable just the same.  I even know about the quirky toilet and how to make the tank refill when it gets stuck.

A little home away from home.

 As I unpack, there's a small piece of wood lying down on the bottom of one of the shelves of the only small book case in the room.  I pick it up to make room for my things when I realize with a slight shock that -- it's mine!

It's a small plaque given to me from my long time friend Mary Lou to send me off in September of 2015 when I came to stay for three months.  And I haven't stayed in this room since then, since I left in December of that year.  So, a little more than two and a half years.  I left it behind apparently.

I remember missing it at first, but - sorry Mary Lou - it's really not crossed my mind since then.  So what a happy surprise to find it again.

And then there's what it says:

"If I settle on the far side of the sea, 

your right hand will hold me fast."

Psalm 139:9,10 

Bell and Suradet for our visit to Phuket October 2015

I am now called a missionary.  It's what they started calling me already a few years back, and not just Suradet and Yupa but whenever I was out and about at church conferences or meetings and I was being introduced by whomever was leading.  I'm from another place and I'm here to serve Jesus, so by default, that's what I'm called.  

I am very aware that my degree of "missionary" comes nowhere near the sacrificial, life-altering experience of those who have left family and home for decades, settling in their new culture as a resident.  I am here, to be honest, more as a visitor.  My hope is to be able to spend perhaps six weeks in Thailand two times each year, give or take.  Not really "settling" (except as far as this place feels like home).  So, true to the status bestowed on the title "missionary" by my generation's evangelical mindset, I hold this "missionary" thing very lightly, and with great respect for those who have done so much work before me.  

Photo Credit: Dave Driver

Still, I do get the scope of this text in light of what I'm doing here.  How far away I am, I still feel it, even if not in such a disorienting way as the first few times.  For instance, I am writing this from tomorrow for any readers on the other side of the globe.  And that time difference really messed with me the first little while.  Not so much so now.  But still.  It's weird, right?  

 

How surprising it is, like finding a lost treasure perhaps, to be reminded again of the scope of the Presence who both goes with me and is already here when I arrive.   A Creator who stands outside of the very concept of time He created to be fully present today and tomorrow simultaneously.  A Protector to hold us all fast, secure, in the midst of anything anywhere.

And this whole psalm, Psalm 139, is about the scope of God's presence, His intimate knowledge of all things in all places and from a perspective outside of time, all directed in an astonishing focus on the object of all He can offer - you and me - ones He created and designed in the secrets of the womb.  

I am glad I found my plaque.  It makes me spend some time again marinating in the reflections of David as he tried in his own way to grasp some concept of how big was His God alongside the realization of His crazy, personal love.  

Here's to happy surprises, and the surprising scope of God's power and presence, wherever you may find yourself 'settled' this amazing God-filled day.