Your Constant

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me. your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalms 139:7–10, NIV 1984).

My Musings – A popular TV show when my son was in college was LOST. It centered around a group of “survivors” of an airplane crash stranded on a mysterious tropical island where the unusual was usual. On the night it aired, I knew my son and his dorm mates would be taking a break from their studies, or whatever (it was college, after all).

One storyline in LOST involved time travel and the necessity of a “constant.” According to the storyline, when a consciousness jumps back and forth through time, it needs a constant to fix onto. An object or person that exists in both periods of time, that the traveler deeply cares about and could easily recognize. Without a constant, the jumps between different times will become more frequent and chaotic until the individual goes mad and dies.

As Christians, our concern is not about jumping back and forth between time, but back and forth between kingdoms. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom, but for the present must live in an earthly kingdom. In God’s Kingdom, we are called to behave one way, but in the worldly kingdom we are expected to behave in another. Increasingly, the expectations of the worldly kingdoms are in conflict with the calling of God’s Kingdom. Conflicts that are becoming more frequent and chaotic.

Without a constant, our “jumps” in the earthly kingdom can take us off-course, farther and farther from God’s Kingdom thinking and behavior. While a Christian cannot stray so far off course that they become hopelessly LOST, they can stray far enough off that they become helplessly lost. Church attendance falls and, in some cases, ceases altogether. The secular pushes aside the spiritual. Deeply held beliefs are questioned.

That’s when we need the help of a constant. And, no matter where we go, there is a constant that we still deeply care about and can easily recognize. He is there. Holding us fast even if we are holding Him loosely. Waiting for us to firm our grip so He can guide us back.

My Advice – No matter how chaotic things get, no matter how frequently worldliness beckons us to “jump” in, don’t lose sight of our constant.