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Vulnerable

         For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13-16)

 

            Here again, the psalm changes directions. This week, I’m supposed to read a chapter that may explain, because there are apparently some patterns about Hebrew poetry just as there are in English poetry. But without that, David seems to stop running and slowly drops to hands and knees in exhaustion and surrender. He can’t escape and he can’t keep running. What else can he do? And with the loss of adrenaline and the end of fight or flight, his mind starts working again. Who is this One he’s running from? Why is he running? He may not even know any more.

            But this One who is everywhere has always been everywhere. He was there when David was at his most vulnerable - when he was in the womb. If God hated him, surely, He could have destroyed him before Jesse and his wife knew there was anyone there to protect. Instead, God was there, attending, planning, working like a master craftsman. And David was the result, not just of basic biology, but of God’s work. David cannot run and cannot fight, but he seems to come to understand that he doesn’t need to.

                Sometimes, what it takes for us to let ourselves be loved is to run out of places to run and the energy with which to run or fight. And it’s at this point that we may come to understand there’s no reason to fight against God in the first place. He isn’t our competition. He isn’t our enemy even if we insist on seeing Him as such. And given a chance, He will no more harm us now than He did when we were at our most vulnerable.

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