Before You Think of Him

“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.”
Psalm 139:17–18, NIV

When two people have shared life for many years, they do not wake each morning needing to begin their relationship again. They may have stopped talking hours earlier. For a while, neither was even aware of the other. Yet when morning comes, nothing between them has to be started over. One simply wakes into a relationship that was already there. Maybe that is part of what makes these words so striking. “…when I awake, I am still with you.” The waking is new. The relationship is not.

Jesus once said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Could that “always” be part of what makes “…when I awake, I am still with you” feel so surprising? “Still” looks back and realizes He was already there. “Always” reaches through the hours we were not thinking about Him at all. When we wake and become aware of Him again, the day is beginning for us, but His presence has continued without interruption. He was already there.

Some mornings, a concern or unanswered question is waiting before we have found words for it. We wake already reaching to take it up again. Yet Paul speaks of “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Maybe that peace becomes very practical. I can let this go, place it in His hands, and put it down for a while, knowing that it does not disappear from His attention when it leaves mine. The One already there knows what I am waking up to before I start trying to own it again.

Another Bible translation of the verse says, “I come to the end—I am still with you,” meaning that though we may run out of answers, He is still there. The other says, “…when I awake, I am still with you.” In one, our thinking reaches its end. In the other, we sleep and wake again. Yet neither changes what the psalmist discovers. He is still there. Could it be that reaching our limit is where we discover His presence was never limited by ours?

Tomorrow morning, the first prayer might be much simpler than we thought. “…when I awake, I am still with you.” Then, as work, conversation, or the needs of the day carry our attention elsewhere, those words can meet us again when we notice Him. We do not have to pretend we have been thinking about God every moment. Maybe the surprise is that turning toward Him again can become a quiet joy rather than feeling that we have let the relationship slip. We can speak to Him, listen, or continue what we were doing with a renewed sense of His company. What if returning our attention to God became less about recovering something we failed to maintain and more about discovering that He has been with us all along?

Prayer

Father, help me wake to Your presence and rest in the assurance that You are already near. When my attention wanders, draw me back with joy and teach me to live in Your faithful company. Amen.