You may have noticed that I am a creature of habits. I do what I do according to the clock and by the book. If it is time for staff meeting, I will be here, seldom early, sometimes late because of traffic, but I will be here. It’s on the calendar, so I do it. I am a creature of habits. If it is October, and my carefully computerized To Do list says that I should put away my summer clothes and get out the fall wardrobe, into the closet I go, regardless of the temperature. It’s what the list said to do! I am a creature of habits and a devotee of the To Do list. I literally print out a To Do list every day. I prioritize everything and pursue each item doggedly throughout the day. If you ask me to do something before its time has come, I will resist you. If you require me to do something that is not on the list, I will complain that I cannot do it. Why? Because it’s not on my list!
My wife calls that compulsive. I say it is being disciplined. Whether it is compulsive or disciplined, I am a creature of habits and a devotee of To Do lists.
But every now and then my disciplines are interrupted. Every now and then the compulsions are frustrated. Something will happen that will throw my carefully constructed plan into chaos. A member of the church I served as pastor stopped by my office to tell me about another church member who was in trouble and who needed an intervention. This was someone way out of control, and really needed someone to step into his life and call him out. That did not easily fit into my plans. I got my schedule and started to muse about whether maybe on Thursday, right after a committee meeting, or Saturday, after discipleship class, or next week – and her hand came down on my list. She put her hand down on the papers and said, “Listen. Some things just don’t fit your plans. Some things have to be done, whether they are convenient or not.” And that hand stayed right on my To Do list until she had captured my full attention. That hand stayed right on my calendar compulsions until I had been freed from my self-imposed chains. That hand stayed right there until I saw that there was a claim on me more compelling than my habits and more important than my usual paths. That hand stayed on me.
It was not just the hand of my parishioner. It was the hand of God. For the God who searches us, knows us, discerns our thoughts, and is acquainted with all our ways – that God lays His hand on us to hold us back from headlong plunges into meaningless routine. The God who knows us better than we know ourselves demonstrates His love by holding us with His hand and keeping us from foolishly wasting ourselves on things that are not productive.
I
We will never know what the Psalmist had been up to when he spoke about the God who would hem him in and lay his hand on him, but it feels as though he had been trying to live out of his own wits. It feels as though the psalmist had been trying to plan his work and work his plan, but somehow he always found himself blocked by the restraining hand of God. “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” Our psalmist got it – that God will lay His hand on us to hold us back from our own stupidity and to restrain us from doing something destructive.
When we moved here from Kentucky in 1971, we needed to move quickly. I was to begin my ministry at the University of Maryland in March. We had made our plans. We would come here in late January and find a house, move the first of March, and be all set. It was right there on my calendar, ensconced on my To Do list. Today, go find a house. Well, you can guess that it was not that simple. First, we encountered a little reality called weather; in January it snows on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and my determination to press forward in my little lightweight car vanished when tractor-trailers passed me on both sides simultaneously! We didn’t get here on the day we planned to get here. And then, when we did begin to look around, my car ran out of gasoline on some suburban road, and I had to knock on a stranger’s door to ask for help. That was not in the plan! All of these things should have been signals, but we plunged ahead. We looked at several houses that we liked and thought we could afford, but there was one thing wrong with all of them: occupancy ninety days after sale. Ninety days?! No, we needed thirty days! The calendar said thirty days. The To Do list said thirty days. Another hand laid on our plans.
Well, we found a house that we could have occupied right away. The reason was obvious. It was a mess. It had been badly misused. There were broken windows. There were holes in the drywall, missing tiles in the bathroom, and the sorriest lavender paint you ever saw. This house was a disaster. But it was an available disaster, so I wanted to take it. I thought I could fix it up. In my spare time, with enough energy and hard work, I thought I could get it into shape. I was about to make an offer when I felt a hand on my shoulder. My good wife held me back and said, “You are beginning a new ministry. The university is huge and getting started will take a lot of time. Do you really want to do this?” “Oh, I can do it, I can do it.” But the hand tightened on my shoulder, “Remember that we have two little children who need you.” And the more she spoke, the tighter her grip on my shoulder. We let that fixer-upper house go. And two days later found another one, just right for us, in which we still live, 37 years later.
You see, God will lay a hand on us to restrain us from doing something inappropriate or unrealistic or just plain wrong. Because our God knows us, knows us better than we know ourselves, knows our paths and our habits, is acquainted with all our ways, so our God, in love, reaches out the hand of restraint to keep us from destructive damaging behavior.
Some people start down a path that would lead to divorce. Infidelity, infatuation, seduction. But I have seen God lay His hand on them through someone who saw what was going on and intervened before things could go too far.
Some people take on habits that will destroy their health – alcohol, overeating, smoking. But God will lay His hand on them, maybe through a medical diagnosis. I know a young man whose smoking habit was huge, but he developed asthma and was told that if he did not stop smoking he wouldn’t make it to the age of forty. Today he thanks the Lord for a physician who was not afraid to tell the truth and be the hand of the Lord in restraint.
Some people develop addictions; they are attracted to drugs or to pornography or to sexual behavior or to getting rich or even to religion! Yes, that too can be addictive! But the grace of God will find us, hemming us in behind and before, laying a hand on us to pull us back. It might be an arrest, it might be getting caught, it might be investments gone sour, it might be a dozen things. But, friends, when you are on the wrong path and something happens to hold you back, and you realize that what you are doing is a wrong path, count yourself blessed. For God has laid His hand on you and has hemmed you in, behind and before, lest you destroy yourself.
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me … you discern my thoughts from far away … you hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”
II
Now everything I have said thus far assumes that when the Lord gets our attention, we turn around and change our pattern. Everything I have said about how our God lays His hand on us to restrain us assumes that we get it and that we change our ways.
But what if we don’t? What if we ignore the hand on our shoulder, and plunge ahead into destructive behavior? What if we decide that we are going to stretch the limits and just keep on doing what we do? We are going to follow that to-do list compulsively. We are going to march right ahead with that damaging behavior, never mind the warnings. We are going to stay with that addiction and let it run us and ruin us. What about that?
I knew one young woman, for example, who was terribly overweight, and who had been told repeatedly that there are certain foods that are like poison to her system. She has been in and out of the hospital repeatedly for treatment, and every time I visit her she sheepishly admits that she has been eating all the wrong foods – fats, sugar, garbage. And yet I would later see her at social events loading her plate, piling it high. Several of her friends became the hand of the Lord in restraint: they talked to her about her problem, they even pooled their funds to pay for counseling. But still she eats and eats and eats some more, digging her way through the fried chicken to an early grave. What about people like that? Does the hand of God hold us back, even when we ignore what He does for us?
Well, the psalmist tried to escape too. He did his best to run from God’s restraining presence. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” The answer is, “Nowhere.” “Lord, I cannot get away from you.”
“If I ascend to heaven, you are there.” For some, church is a place to escape from God. Not to encounter God, but to escape from God. Church is like what Robert Frost said about home – it’s the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. So some people use church as an escape, because everybody there is nice to you and they don’t make you uncomfortable or guilty or ashamed. But guess what? At church, they do teach God’s word. At church, they do challenge damaging behavior. At church, they may even invite you to be a part of an accountability group to deal with your problem. No escape. “If I ascend to heaven, you are there.”
Or, on the other hand, says the psalmist, “If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” The old translations put it more boldly, “If I make my bed in hell, you are there.” Some get so caught up in addictions that they become self-destructive. Some get so tied up in greed or in alcohol or in the pursuit of sensual pleasure that they just lose themselves. Said Willy Loman in the play, Death of a Salesman, “I feel sort of temporary about myself.” And that is where some of us go – to hell on earth. Never mind whatever your theology says about heaven or hell after death, some reach it here in this life. They feel kind of temporary about themselves, they see no future. But listen again: “if I make my bed in hell, you are there.” God will not let us go, even in our deepest despair and our headlong rush to escape.
And if I just try to ignore it all, if I just fall into plodding along day by day, trying not to think about it, “if I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”
There is no depth to which you can sink that the hand of God cannot reach. There is no sin we have committed which He cannot heal. There is no mistake we have made which He cannot handle. Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
Even in a lonely room, late at night, when you cannot sleep for worrying about where your life has gone, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from deeper despair.
Even in a dead-end job, one you hate, one that is destroying the gifts that are in you, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from danger.
Even in a lonely house, from which all the children have gone, and where the marriage seems hollow and empty, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from lovelessness.
Even in a dingy little apartment, cramped and cold and unpleasant, where all the mistakes of the years come rushing back into your sleepless nights, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from anxiety.
Even in a prison cell, where you face nothing but countless bleak nights, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from losing faith.
Even in a nursing home bed, where you wonder whether you will ever be well again, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from giving up.
Even in a strange country, where you fear you will never be understood and will never find a true home, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from surrendering to hopelessness.
Even in those last hours, when dimly, through the pain, you know that from dust you came and unto dust you shall return, even there His hand will lead, His hand will hold you back from regret.
For “the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell.” Even there, even here, even you, even me.
III
And so come to this Table, invited here by the One whose hand has been reaching out to restrain you, but also to beckon you. For in His “No” there is also a “Yes”, in His restraint there is also an invitation. Come to this Table and know that His hand has held and protected you thus far on the way.
Come to this Table, whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you have done. If you are in the farthest parts of the sea, thinking you are beyond His reach, come and share in this Table, for it is a place of refuge for all who struggle. If you are in the highest of heaven or the hole of hell, come, taste, touch, hope, believe, trust, feel. And as you hold in your trembling hand this bread, this cup, sense the touch of the nail-scarred hand, leading you, holding you back, holding you up, holding you, holding you, holding you. You will not fall; He has searched you and known you. He has laid His hand on you. Even there, wherever you are. Even there. Even here. Especially here.
