Read Psalm 139
This is one of my all-time favorite Scripture passages. Reading Psalm 139 makes me feel so loved by God! It is one of the places in Scripture that I turn to the most when I'm feeling down. I cannot begin to fathom the depths of God's knowledge or understand His workings! How can a God who knows all of the billions of the stars by name (Psalm 147:4) also be concerned with counting the number of hairs on my head (Matthew 10:30)? God is so vast, yet He is so intimate and personal at the same time.
This Psalm starts out by proclaiming the Lord's intimate knowledge of His people. He knows everything we've ever done or are going to do in the future. He knows what we're thinking and what we're going to say before we actually speak it. Verse 6 states that this kind of knowledge is too high for us...we can't come close to attaining it! This quality of God is what theologians call omniscience. This means that God has supreme knowledge of all things at all times. Talk about supernatural power!
David (the writer) then begins to speak of the truth that there is no place where he can hide from God. Wherever we go, we can always be certain that the Lord's presence is with us. I hear many people pray, "Lord, be with [this person]." The fact is that the Lord already is! Theologians call this characteristic of God omnipresence. This means that He is everywhere at once, which is a truth we can't wrap our human minds around!
In verse 13, David begins to speak of God's skillful and careful design of each human being. This is why you hear pro-life activists proclaim that all life is sacred. Verse 13 states that God formed you when you were in your mother's womb! This is in direct contradiction to the pro-choice mentality that destroying a human embryo is OK. According to this verse, God had a plan for that little embryo from the beginning. Before a baby is even born, God already knows exactly how his/her life will unfold (16). He forms and designs each baby exactly how He wants him/her to be(13). Eye color, hair color, race, talents, etc, are all carefully selected by Him. That should make us feel extremely special. God's works are wonderful, and because He made us, we are wonderful too (14).
When I was a teenager, I used to hate the way I looked. I wished I had different hair, different skin, a different body type, etc. When someone pointed out to me that those traits weren't accidents, and that they were each carefully selected for me by God, I realized how sinful such an attitude was. Complaining about the way we look is really a slap in God's face, because He intentionally made us that way!
Verses 17 and 18 really sum up the vastness of God's thoughts, as we talked about earlier in this devotional. They are more than a human can possibly fathom. I love verses 23 and 24, and I try to pray those verses frequently. I've realized that when I do honestly ask God to search my heart and expose my sinfulness, He does! If you want to grow and mature in your faith, repentance is a big part of that. As a teenager, repentance wasn't a big part of my life. Compared to all the other kids in my public school, I was really "good" in my opinion, and I didn't think I really needed to repent of anything. It was only later that I realized how sinful I really was! Remember that 1 John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin, we are liars. If you truly can't think of areas that you need to repent in, then I encourage you to ask God to reveal them to you.
I hope this Psalm was encouraging to you! God loves you more than you could ever imagine. Before you even entered this world He knew everything about you. He created you in His image and carefully selected the traits that make you unique. Praise Him right now for His love and care for you!
