"When I awake, I am still with thee." Psa 139:18

A man, who is religious with his God, is shallow in his relationship with God, and content with an occasional acknowledgment of God. He wages his warfare on the field of business in total forgetfulness of the divine—a mark of a religious life which is neither very deep nor very real. One that rarely thrills in spiritual strength or joy.

This was me at times. I want it no more.

The relationship of the psalmist is different. It’s real. It’s relational. The psalmist's recognition is continuous; always he sets the Lord before him.

And it is this continual recognition and this unvarying practice of God's presence which kindles the psalmist when he is discouraged and brings the joy that cometh in the morning. And it was because the psalmist lived with God and went to sleep under the wings of God that he could take his pen and write in all sincerity, "When I awake, I am still with thee."

This text is full of meaning when we think of waking up from our spiritual lethargy.

Our prayers—how cold and formal they can become; they are merely the semblance and mockery of prayer. And the Bible loses its freshness and its blessing and does not leap to meet our needs when we come to it. There settles down a deadness on our spirits, and we go to church and listen to the preaching and might as well be a thousand miles away.

Have you known these desert seasons? Lethargy?

The greatest of all questions is just this, "Am I with God, and is God with me?"

Do I trust Him and try to serve Him now? If not, when I awake—what then?

But if I do …

and if I seek His face…

then when I awake…

this will be the glory of it all…

 that "I am still with Thee."