Psalm 139: The God who knows me

I have been praying with this psalm lately. And am going to share a reflection on this psalm at church this Sunday. It was a last minute decision to 'fill in' for the person who will not be able to make it. This psalm has been called 'the crown of all the psalms'. Charles Spurgeon writes, "The brightness of this psalm is like unto a sapphire stone, or Ezekiel's 'terrible crystal'; it flames out with such flashes of light as to turn night into day".

It is a psalm declaring many profound thoughts about the attributes of our God (it is certainly loaded with theological ideas); yet set in such personal terms that it moves the emotions of every person who prays it. It is not only that God knows everything about his creation: it is the fact that he knows 'me' as an individual person, so intimately.

I can never, even if I wanted to, escape from his very presence. He seeks me out, even if the darkness threatens to engulf me. He is the Creator of my 'inmost being'...the self that I am only slowly beginning to know and appreciate. Therefore he knows me better than any other human person can...and indeed better than I know myself.

How wonderful! How wonderful!

I will never come to the end of Your thoughts, O God.

Indeed, I give You full permission to search me. Look into my deepest desires and motives.

Cleanse me, that I may walk in Your everlasting way.

Amen