Blog: God With Us and Before Us

By Bill Stark, HT.com blogger, president of InnerComm, and director of Cloud Walk
Whether you’re feeling the stresses of a huge upcoming test as an Ole Miss student or you sense that your career is not going anywhere, stress and anxiety seem to bear down on us more frequently than nearly any other emotion.
I was sitting in a doctor’s examining room recently waiting for a procedure to begin. Cuts on my nose and scalp due to skin cancer. I must admit I was a little nervous sitting there on that sterile plastic table. Like many of you, I don’t like being cut on and waiting, for what seemed like forever, brought on a sort of empty feeling.
The clock on the wall in front of me was all there was to look at.
In boredom, I began watching the second hand make its way around the clock’s edge. It ticked from 12 to 13 to 14 down to 20 and then across to 35 and 40 and so on. It made its way around several times as I waited.
Then, I was struck by a very specific thought.
As I watched the second hand nearing 15 seconds, I had a calming thought that God knew all the details of what would happen when the second hand ticked over to 45 or 50 and then on to the next minute. He was not only with me but He was going ahead of me into the future. Since God is outside of time and space and sees both the beginning and the end, it’s comforting to know that He sees the future and He’s never surprised by events.
I gained a sense of calm and rest as I pondered that He will be with me in the future and is with me now.
I like the quote that says “Worry and anxiety is thinking about a future without God”.
So, today, I encourage you, whether you’re in a job that’s not fruitful, fighting with your spouse, facing a health crisis or you’re simply uneasy about your present situation….know this…..God is with you and He will go before you and meet you in the future as well. He is our comforter and He loves us.
Rest in knowing that He is aware of all our coming and going. He is with us, He never leaves us, He saw our bodies form inside our mother’s womb and all our days are numbered in His book. I can trust that kind of God.
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Joshua 1:9 (ESV – emphasis added)
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Psalm 139: 1-18 (NIV – emphasis added)
You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
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. How precious to me are your thoughts God!
 How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
Bill Stark is a Greenville, Mississippi native who graduated from Ole Miss in 1983 with a BA degree in Journalism. Bill married his college sweetheart, Starwyn Strickland, of Brazil, Mississippi, and they have three children, including twins Mary Catherine and Ellen and son Will. He currently resides in Alpharetta, Georgia. Email Bill Stark at bill.stark@cloudwalk.org