You Have Searched Me and Known Me-For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
“O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD.
You hem me in behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle by the farthest sea, even there Your hand will guide me; Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”—even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to You.
For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum! If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.
O God, that You would slay the wicked—away from me, you bloodthirsty men—who speak of You deceitfully; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD, and detest those who rise against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them as my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.”
“O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD.” Without a doubt, this psalm is one of the gems in the psalm treasury. Want encouragement? Read Psalm 139! Feel as if nobody loves you? Read Psalm 139! David begins this psalm by praising God for knowing him better than he knows himself. God knows us warts and all and continues to love us anyway!
“You hem me in behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle by the farthest sea, even there Your hand will guide me; Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”—even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to You.” I was raised on the King James Version, and I love that translation for the truth it portrays: ‘If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea…” My husband has a friend who was in the submarine service; this translation would be particularly meaningful for anyone in that situation. There is literally nowhere in the world where God will not find you. God is not bothered by darkness because “in Him is light, and the light is the life of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5 uses the past tense, but for God, there is no past, only a continuous present.)
“For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.” Life begins when a baby is conceived and God knows every cell of that baby’s body. Does this mean that abortion is wrong? Yes! Abortion is murder, no matter how much someone wants to claim that “that’s only a piece of tissue.” A vaginal ultrasound can detect a baby’s heartbeat as early as five and a half-six weeks, but even before that, the fetus is growing. Dead things don’t grow; only live things grow.
“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum! If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.” Whether we are awake or asleep, God remains with us. God is infinite, and so are His thoughts.
“O God, that You would slay the wicked—away from me, you bloodthirsty men—who speak of You deceitfully; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD, and detest those who rise against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them as my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.” ” Throughout David’s life, he continued to repudiate evil. Even when David fell into adultery, he repented completely. Not only did David repent, but David also gave God complete permission to confront him with “any offensive way” in which David might have sinned. Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.” We all mess up, but when we copy David and repent, God forgives us and cleans us up.
APPLICATION: My Great Grandfather Gustaf Bjorling was born in 1870. When Gust was about to leave Sweden in 1887 at the age of 17, the pastor of his home church in Ovanaker, Sweden, counseled him using Psalm 139 to encourage him that no matter where Gust went, God would be there before him. Gust never forgot that counsel and passed his faith on to his children. I only learned that story when we were preparing to come to Ghana for the first time. That was when my father shared this glorious bit of family history with me.
I titled this study as I did for a reason. Apart from a few flaming narcissists, the rest of us are quite aware of our shortcomings. No matter how hard we try, sometimes we mess up, saying things we shouldn’t say and doing things we shouldn’t do. God is purely holy and dwells in unapproachable light due to His holiness. If God were not to come near us, we would never be able to approach God in any fashion. Psalm 139 assures us that God knows all the nasty details of our lives and cares for us despite them; in fact, God has known us ever since we were first conceived and has loved us for all that time.
“But,” you protest, “how do we know that God loves us?” John 3:16 gives the answer. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosever would believe in him would not perish but would have everlasting life.” All of us are born with a sin problem, and sin must be paid for with blood. But since we are sinful, even if we were to commit suicide, we would still be offering sinful blood. Only the blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God, is a sufficient sacrifice for our sins. Praise God! The sacrifice has been made and God now offers eternal life to all who will believe in Him and who will believe in Jesus. Believing in Jesus means that we accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf and dedicate our lives to serving God rather than ourselves.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, we bless You and praise You for allowing Jesus to become the perfect blood sacrifice for our sins. Help us to trust in You completely. We turn our lives over to You and beg You to help us so that we will follow You and not our own desires. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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