Have you ever thought about running away from God? Or has your situation ever been so bad that you felt as if you had outrun Him, and He didn't know where to find you?

David, the author of Psalm 139, asked a provocative question: "Where can I flee from Your presence?" (v.7). He answered his own question with two parallel responses. He first replied, "If I ascend to heaven, You are there" (v.8). It doesn't take a theologian to figure that out. After all, where else would God be?

But David's second reply was striking: "If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there" (v.8). The word translated hell in this verse is from the Hebrew word Sheol. This was the place where the souls of the dead went before Christ rose from the grave.

As David pondered the awesome presence of God, he realized that there are no boundaries that God cannot pass. One Bible teacher points out that the psalmist was so taken aback by his own thought that he had to stop in mid-sentence: "If I make my bed in hell, behold, You . . ."

There is no place we can go that is hidden from God's watching eye. Nothing we experience lies beyond His loving presence. What a comfort to know He is near!  — Haddon W. Robinson