A devotional of Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
Our greatest need is to be sought after and to be known. Only God perfectly pursues us, understands us, knows us. Thank you Father for that marvelous truth. He sees us exactly as we are, he accepts and loves us, and draws us in for a hug. He does so even when we are the woman caught in adultery, or the prodigal son returning from a long stint of debauchery.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Note the concepts of the soul/heart/mind of God here: he knows, he perceives, he discerns. His senses are focused on you. He sees you, hears you, feels you. He desires you. He is alert to you, focuses on you, fills your thoughts in divine intellectual intercourse. He is overjoyed by you, delights in you, is jealous for you. He loves you! He knows you in and out and is thrilled at his handiwork, his masterpiece that is ____________ (insert your name here.) He likes you a lot.
I cannot even begin to fathom God’s involvement in my life.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
God is love itself. Nothing can separate us from the love that is God. Even when we desire to disassociate ourselves from him, he, as it were, guides us in running away from him. We couldn’t even do that ourselves if we tried. All our vain and foolish attempts at separation from our life-giving, oxygen are thwarted by his love for us. Even when we reject and despise him, he remains our source, our all in all. We use his gift of strength to shake our fist at him. We use his gift of intellect to disprove him. We use his good gifts to distract us from him. The spotlight of his love is forever trained on us.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.
God fashioned and designed you. As a knitter knits one stitch at a time and creates a marvelous garment, so God formed every cell in the secret place. He didn’t just start watching you either. He oversaw every step of every process from the formation of your father’s exact sperm, through its desperate journey to meet your mother’s exact egg and fuse into an explosion of life at just the right time on his calendar. He oversaw that with the mesmerized delight of a schoolboy following a swimming tadpole in a shallow pool.
Furthermore, God thinks of you a lot! He just won’t quit. If the angels didn’t like you, they’d tire of hearing about you and how special you are.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our strength according to Deuteronomy 6:5. The word strength means with everything we have and are; with vehemence; with muchness. The word offensive or wicked in verse 24 above is otseb, meaning pain or sorrow; an idol. God’s desire for us is intimate relationship. My idols I fashion cause offense and keep me from experiencing or understanding the fullness of his love for me. May I bare my heart to him that he may remove the stench of idolatry and teach me to pursue him, know him, love him – the lover of my soul.
What a blessing this portion of Scripture is. Thank you for faithfully commenting on His Word!
It is my pleasure to serve up such a delish dish. It is rich indeed!