My Bible Study Reflection for Tuesday, May 03, 2022
Psalm 139:1–6 (ESV)
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Psalm 139:1–6 (ESV)
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Many years ago, the first six verses of this well-loved Psalm was placed in a list for me of passages to guide me in confession of sin. In my experience almost any passage can be used to prompt various kinds of prayer. It's certainly true of this passage. I can worship God because he has searched me and known me. I can be amazed at his infinite knowledge and discernment into not just my movements but also my thoughts and intentions as these lines go on to emphasize. I can ponder that God searches me and knows me and so recognize that nothing is hidden from God, and it can provoke me to a more informed honesty with God in prayer. I can ponder these lines and both express and feel gratitude stirred in me because I am known and am not invisible, not to God. I can also ponder these lines and so ask God to help me to remember the glorious truth that God has in the past and continuing into the present knows me. I am not invisible.
I think each of these examples are legitimate ways of meditating on and praying through this passage. But as I think through the text again this morning, I don't think that David prayed like this because it reminded him to behave or reminded him to confess sin that he had forgotten. Rather, I think he is thrilled with this knowledge that when he attempts to probe God's comprehensive knowledge of him that such knowledge is too wonderful for him. This clearly shows though that he did have the practice of trying to attain it. He sought to probe the depths of what it meant that God knew him so thoroughly.
It's difficult to overstate the benefit of such close thinking about this text. Its seems like a prescription medicine developed for one illness but then later discovered to treat many ailments. Simply knowing that this passage exists, which I have known of for nearly 50 years doesn't help much. Even to have it memorized and carefully stored away in my mind does not provide the full effect. Rather, what has helped me this morning is the real time meditation that both has encouraged me in the moment and given me future hope recognizing the help these lines provide to me and others.
For instance, these verses could provide the get-well plan to anyone caught up in the performance art of social media, desperately checking back every few minutes to see who has "liked" their image or comment. Knowing that God knows when I sit down and when I rise up, that God sees, diminishes the need to be seen or liked by others. Knowing that God searches out my path and my lying down and is aquatinted with all my ways gives hope to the leader or worker or colleague who feels ignored, or passed over, or underutilized. To the person locked in conflict, desperately wanting other people to see what they see and understand what they understand and wanting to argue their case, the knowledge that even before a word is "on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether," can cool the raging itch to argue when it seems that no one else will listen. God always sees and knows that complex set of thoughts and motivations driving us forward from within. To the one fearful of physical danger, or of a terminal illness, or personal failure, these words, "you hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me," provide real assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:39). No wonder he exclaims in the end, not with frustration but with a deeply contented satisfaction borne from this meditation, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for; it is high; I cannot attain it."
I can also say that I cannot attain peace in the challenges I face without this regular soul exercise of consciously remembering that I am seen and known and protected by Yahweh himself!
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