Alpha and Omega

“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.”

– Psalm 139:1-6

God does not play on the same timeline that we play on. In front of us there is God. Behind us there is God. At this very point in time there is God. Yet, our vision is so set on this point in time that we tend to miss the miraculous power of God expressed through all time.

So here I am, feeling weighted down, mentally drained, completely incapable of writing something that could possibly be of any value to anyone and yet I still hear the voice of God inside my head saying, “write”. I’d sit there just helplessly crying out, “About what?! I can’t think straight! I can barely focus on anything!” Why would God possibly be wanting me to write at such a time where even inadequacy understates how I feel. It is more than just a feeling of not being capable of writing, I feel unmotivated and overwhelmed with other responsibilities life has been throwing at me. “Writing, God? Why?” So I began to search for answers.

That is where the beauty of Psalm 139:5 comes in. “You hem me in behind and before”. God has you right where he intended to have you at this point. Not only that, but God has woven his words of truth into the fabric of your past and your future. We cannot outrun him going forward and we cannot go back in hope to escape him. But when we embrace him as Alpha and Omega you wont be steered wrong. The joy in that is when at the present you feel worn down and defeated, you can look forward in hope and see God’s hand. You can look back to see the beautiful work God has done for you in the past as well. Either way you look, God will be there; he’s hemmed into your eternity. In looking back at what God has revealed to me in the past, I realized this truth. The reason that this is just one of two posts that I’m grouping together is because what I found was something that I had written over the summer and never shared with anyone, but now I feel compelled to. It touched my heart when I wrote it. I felt God’s awakening power as I wrote it. But I let it sit where it was. I never allowed it to blossom in my heart. It collected dust hidden away. There is power in looking back to the things God has revealed to you in the past because when you go back in time, God is still there. He can speak to you through the things he has already done and remind you of his love. He can show you new things through the truths he has revealed to you in the past. It is God’s tenancy to not just enable you to reclaim that which was lost, but he will often overflow your cup and give more than you were looking for.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

– Revelation 22:13

The beauty of truth that God has revealed to you is that it remains true throughout all time. It is true because he has been and will continue to be true from the beginning unto the end. That is what we need to remember as Christians. God’s truth does not fade, only our remembrance of it fades if we don’t refresh our minds of it. Let this truth be refreshed in your mind. God is actively using the past, present and future to bring him glory. Embrace that truth; look back at what God has done, look ahead at the promises God has in store for you and feel the blessing God gives through its discovery.