Personal

 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. (Psalm 139:1-6)

 

It's been a while since I’ve looked at this psalm. It’s probably my favorite. Today as I look at it, the idea that comes to mind is slowness. The searching mentioned isn’t yanking open drawers and throwing things around in hopes of finding some piece of incriminating evidence of sin. Instead, it’s a slow meandering, full of the thoughts of what potential room has, or that window.

This recalls something I’ve shared before. There’s an old booklet that compares our “hearts” to a house. And whenever I think about the idea, I remember a realization from years ago. As someone preached on this idea, I imagined Jesus walking into my heart-home dressed impeccably, including a white pair of gloves with which He touched things then examined the gloves for dirt. “Jesus isn’t a Martha Stewart” I thought, and the scene reversed. This time, when Jesus walked through the door, He was wearing a tool belt. After all, He was a carpenter. He didn’t worry about dust or less than appropriate reading materials on the tables. He started examining walls and discussing plans for adding to, removing from, and repairing the structure of my life.

But even that doesn’t fit the mood of the morning. It’s not that there’s no work He wants to do, but at least at the moment, there’s no sense that my life will collapse around me if He doesn’t do something about this right now. Over ___ years, my life has gone from a condemned disaster area where full tactical and HazMat gear was needed just to look it over to a place where it might not even be a major “fixer-upper.” This isn’t something that I can be proud of, because I didn’t do the work, and the next door He opens may be to an area that does require HazMat gear. One of the thoughts that comes to mind is that I'm a hoarder in this “house,” so the need for the gear is likely.

The next part, His “knowing my thoughts from afar” speaks most loudly to me. This is one of the verses in the Bible that seems to me to be personal. In most of Scripture, I feel like I’m just one of the herd, but this says God knows myyy thoughts from afar. Some of those thoughts are petty, but He knows them. He’s acquainted with all myyy ways. When I first realized this, the picture in my mind was of God doing His God-thing, and interrupting to listen because I had a thought. It’s a silly picture because God doesn’t have to interrupt one activity to do another, but the point is that the passage shows God as personal in a personal way, not just a general way.

This is closer than even Jesus talking about leaving the 99 to find the one who is lost, because if you’re just another of the 99, He leaves you in search of the troublemaker. Somehow, it never seemed to me that God's answer was for me to become a troublemaker just so He’d leave the 99 to find me.

This is another of those pieces of Scripture that we should read aloud, and make it personal. Stress different words, and listen to what speaks to you. Notice what is hard, or impossible today. Make it a prayer of thanks or a plea. Repeat it until you have worked through the passage with God and can say it in confidence and gratitude.