Could I Go Without Him?

Grizzly sporting his ‘Cooling Collar’ on a steamy August morning

One morning this week I stepped outside into the August heat and humidity. My first thought was that  I’d walked into a bathroom just after someone took a hot shower.  It was going to be a tough day to ask Grizzly to walk with me. After all, he wears a lush black fur coat year round.  

Part of me thinks Could I go without him?  Have I gotten there?  The answer is no. The thought of taking a walk outside without either Grizzly or a friend is too much. Maybe it always will be.  In the moment, I resigned myself to my need and dependence on him, but hated the feeling of neediness.  I’d give him plenty of water, put his “cooling collar” on him and shorten our walk considerably, but if I was walking, I had to have him by my side. 

For a few weeks now I have been listening to or reading the same Psalm each morning.  As part of two practices I’ve been experimenting with this quarter, Communal Reading of Scripture and Lectio Divina, I sometimes listen to the Psalm four times in a row, looking for what word or phrase stands out to me.  

After those steamy moments outside checking the weather, I came in to read Psalm 139 yet again.  Grizzly was lying on the carpet in front of me enjoying the air conditioning.   I read these words in the Message translation: 

I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too

— your reassuring presence, coming and going.

…Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?

    to be out of your sight?

As my eyes fell on those phrases, I  remembered that God has given me this creature. He has not taken away my weakness, but He has given me this animal as a daily picture to remind me that He is with me and He is sufficient. 

I admit I sometimes want to walk the road of independence. 

Sometimes I’d like to wander down the lane of self-pity. Somedays I want to meander the path of indulgence or race down the street of vengeance by my own hand.  I fantasize about traipsing about in complete self-reliance.

If, If, If….The Psalmist writes. 

If I climb to the sky, you’re there!

    If I go underground, you’re there!

If I flew on morning’s wings

    to the far western horizon,

You’d find me in a minute—

    you’re already there waiting!

He tries that too, imagining where he might go and be completely alone, and he comes us with nothing.  

Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!

    At night I’m immersed in the light!”

It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;

    night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

A few minutes with this Psalm under the watchful gaze of my ever-present mammoth dog has moved me from despising my own need and weakness to gratitude and joy for what God has given me. In Grizzly, I see the beauty and safety of God’s presence, of being known, being seen, being in God’s every thought.  I look across the room and remember that I’m loved. There is the visible, furry, ‘fragrant’ reminder of the presence of Christ.  I am safe. So safe that I can ask God: 

Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me;

Cross-examine and test me,

    get a clear picture of what I’m about;

See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—

    then guide me on the road to eternal life.

I can pray this and  know that whatever He finds, it will not separate me from his love.

 Grizzly sees me at my best and my worst each day. He hears every word - good and bad- that I speak. He sees my procrastination and my anger and my pity parties. Yet he’s right there watching me, going where I go, behind and in front of me.  God has embodied Psalm 139 for me and only in embracing my need could I see it.