Waking with God

in the now and the not-yet.

In Psalm 139:18 we read these sumptuous words of David: “When I awake,” he says to the LORD, “I am still with you.” The close context for these words is the beautiful, filled-with-wonder and deeply-precious thoughts of God concerning David (and, as the representative king, of the people collectively). Those thoughts are staggeringly beyond number.

David has woken once more into the ongoing reality of the perceptions and plans which are higher by far than the best we could ever muster.¹ He wakes in continuing amazement — the delight had not been a passing daydream.

It’s possible his words encompass all he has said thus far in the psalm, a kind of summative statement before the ‘sharp left’ of v.19ff. Each morning he wakens with the God of unfailing presence and limitless perception, even when those combine into momentary alarm.² No matter how difficult the previous days, no matter how distressing the night that has now passed,³ David has securely woken once again in the company of the Creator who fashioned him in his mother’s womb.

And he ever will. Waking into God’s continuing presence is the texture of daily life for those whose being is oriented by faith in the living God, those asking to be both searched and known. Its nap may often be flattened by failure or fright, but its rich pile will not become matted or worn threadbare through trial, since it doesn’t depend upon our consciousness nor completed obedience. When we slip into sleep’s suspension, he remains fully awake and alert to all our need for mercy and protection.

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Earlier in the psalms, David spoke of another waking with the LORD, one that takes us by the hand into a more intense light:

As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face;
when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.
(Psalm 17:15)

A psalm that pleads for rescue from enemies and vindication before God closes with the most radical assurance. Whatever this world might hurl at us, the one whose hope is in Jesus can express the confident hope of seeing (and then being changed into⁴) the likeness of the Lord. That sight will completely satisfy, nothing left out and not a shred of discontent. An anti-climax it will not be!

This is a wonder beyond words and a sight no one is given this side of glory — even Moses, great servant that he was, was only able to see the back of God⁵. Perhaps the person who came closest to both wakings was Simeon. Having lived his life in daily communion with the Lord, waking with him each morning, he saw the face of embodied salvation and declared himself ready to slip peacefully into life’s final sleep. The earnest of the ultimate face-to-face in glory being woven into the warp and woof of his devoted soul, he was secure in knowing he would wake and be satisfied in seeing again, and in delighted fullness, the Saviour he now held in his aged arms.⁶

There will be a final waking into unending day, in the city where there is no more night.⁷ Those who now wake daily will then awake definitively. The God who has planned and ordered all our days, who has been ever-present, reading every anxious thought and knowing our hearts in their ocean depths, will finally be seen — his face not that of an unknown stranger but the LORD who has always loved us, coming now into clearest, fullest focus, a sight that will never dim nor distort, never pale nor fail. And we shall be satisfied, wholly and lastingly, in the One we awake to see.

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Wake up early
right before the sun
as another
day has just begun
let promises sink
underneath your skin
there are mercies
for you again…

Jess Ray

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1. Isaiah 55:8,9

2. Psalm 139:7 has a dual sense about it, both of confidence and concern.

I have nightmares I could never share with you,
the kind that keep me up all night…
I have nightmares I would never wish on you,
the kind that keep me down all day.

3. Yoko Ono, Never Say Goodbye.

4. 1 John 3:2b

5. Hebrews 3:2; Exodus 33:18-23

6. Luke 2:25-32

7. See also this earlier piece: No More Night