Series on “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”: Psalm 139:23-24
(Click on the
link below to read the verses.)
Psalm 139:1-24
[Many years ago, there used to be articles in the Reader’s Digest titled “I am Joe’s ___” with the blank being filled with a body part or organ. Over the years, I’ve written down verses that are meaningful to me on 3x5 cards. In this series we’ll be looking at some of my favorite verses. In other words, “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”.]
Have you ever noticed how someone who is really close to you knows what you’re going to say before you say it? After fifty-two years of marriage, my wife does that with me. In fact, on occasion, she will finish my sentences before I’m even done.
God is like that with us. He is all-knowing –
omniscience is the theological word for it. David put it in a much more
personal and practical way in his psalm/prayer.
2 You know when I
sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord. NLT
Because we are all sinners, to be fully known by
someone, and still having them love you is staggering. David, for instance, had
some glaring skeletons in his closet – an affair with Bathsheba and then having
her husband, Uriah, killed. Yet, the Lord loved David. In fact, the bloodline
of Jesus ran through him.
David also wrote in his psalm/prayer how God’s
Spirit was with him everywhere he went. The theological word for this is omnipresence.
But again, David framed it in a much more personal and poetic way.
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. NIV
The impact of this was that David realized even in
the darkness of his sin, the Lord was there. Not only was the Lord there, but
he was at work in his life, using his trials and temptations and failures to
grow in his faith.
Finally, David wrote about the all-sovereign God –
or how God is omnipotent. In doing so, David defined himself not by his failures
or successes, but by the truth of being created by the Living God.
13 You made all the
delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. NLT
As David meditated and wrote about who God was and
how God worked in his life, he concluded his psalm/prayer where he started – a desire
to follow the Lord and obey him in all that he did.
23 Search me, O God,
and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life. NLT
This is a psalm/prayer worth repeating every day of
my life.
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