Article August 7, 2000 Issue

The God of the tunnel

Florence refused to accept this verdict.

By Gay Bryant

There's no escaping God—and we can be glad of that. In the Bible, the Psalmist makes this point much more poetically. Speaking to God, he writes: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there" (Ps. 139:7, 8).

Not only does the Bible show the blessings of God's ever-presence, it also shows the mess we can get into when we think we can run away from Him. When the Biblical character Jonah tried to flee from God, he found it was impossible. God was with him everywhere, even in the belly of the fish that had swallowed him. Realizing that God's presence was with him saved Jonah and set him free.

This ever-presence of God, who is Spirit, means a lot to us, perhaps more than we sometimes realize. A friend of mine learned something about God's "everywhereness" when she was riding the underground in London. Florence comes from Zimbabwe and had not been in England for very long. All her papers, money, and credit cards were in her bag. As she boarded the train, her bag became caught in the doors. They're supposed to open immediately if anything gets caught. But this time they didn't, and the train started off with my friend on the inside and her bag on the outside.

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