Contemplate Psalm 139
I haven't been feeling up to par, then I stood outside in the frigid cold for 30 minutes waiting for a bus, so forgive me for only posting a photo and a direct Psalm without much commentary today. My head literally feels frozen. Anyway, this is a Psalm many people recite or refer to in sermons, devotionals, and use as a source of memory verses. Rather than read it, skimming through vaguely because it is "so familiar", take this time to come to it in a different way. Before you read it, think of an animal or a person you love and know very well. (Since I put up a photo of a horse, I thought about how well I grew to know, understand and care about the individual horses I trained.) Try to recall as many details about that person or animal as you can, their behaviors, voice, scent, their catch phrases or typical antics, their routines, and how often you are with or apart from them. Think about how much you care about them, their well-being, body, soul, safety and then read this Psalm with the intention of seeing how similar, and yet, how much MORE intimately God knows and loves you!
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
O Lord, you have searched me
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 know it completely, 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 from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths,[a] you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the 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 will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
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