Read Psalm 139
Psalm 139 has all the material of systematic theology.
You could break down the first 6 verses and summarize them by saying that God is omniscient - he knows everything. You could break down verses 7-12 and summarize them by saying that God is omnipresent - he is everywhere. You could break down verses 13-16 and say that God is omnipotent - he is all powerful. You could break down verses 19-22 and say that God is a righteous judge and will one day do away with evil. All of this is true. God is all these things.
But if you read Psalm 139 you know that this prayer is more than just a catalogue of the attributes of God. It is the Psalmist relishing in the reality that God is all these things, but not just in general, God is all these things for him.
The Scriptures are on the ground. Sure there are some lofty moments. Ephesians begins in such a way that it seems like Paul is trying to squeeze “every spiritual blessing” that is ours in Christ into a few chalk-full chapters. But even these heights are intended to be the groundwork for the everyday realities of anger, honest work, bitterness, marriage, and parenting just to name a few.
Likewise, Psalm 139, rivets the realities of God into the realities of everyday life.
David Powlison begins his book Seeing with New Eyes by offering the text-book definition of an ocean wave.
A wave is nothing more than a disturbance that moves from place to place in some medium, carrying energy with it. The common waves of the ocean, as well as the greater ones occurring during storms, are oscillations of the sea caused by the frictional drag of the wind on its surface.
It is an accurate definition. Powlison goes on to quote Patrick O’brien’s description of a sea-storm in The Far Side of the World where the waves are so powerful that men are thrown overboard, the sail has to be cut down, sailors are dismembered and the naval frigate is tossed about like a child’s paper-boat in class 5 rapids. Powlison concludes:
So, a wave is nothing more than a moving disturbance caused by the frictional drag of wind on the ocean’s surface? Tell that to a man snuffed out, or dying, or dismembered, or to a man who passed through such extreme crisis of activity that he did not notice his fingernails being torn out!
The point is: it is one thing to know the text-book definition of a wave and it is a whole other thing to experience one. Psalm 139 isn’t cold facts about a God out there. It is an attempt to describe the experience of a God who is so very near.
Read verses 1-6. God is acquainted with all your ways. Before you even speak he knows your thoughts. Every now and then you’ll hear people throw out the statistic that the average adult makes around 35,000 decisions a day. What to eat, what to wear, which foot to put your shoes on first, shoes or sandals, whether to tie them before you leave the house or in the car. God knows all of them. And he knows the motivations that drive those decisions. Jeremiah tells us the human heart is deceitful above all things; even we don’t understand our own motivations most of the time, but God does. Nothing is hidden from his gaze.
God knows the deepest desires of your heart. He knows the great disappointments of your life. Jonathan Rogers instructs authors to know their characters so well that they should know what their characters expected out of life and how reality actually turned out - even if they never include that in the story. Why? Because that gap between expectations and reality is a big part of who we are. Maybe you expected to have more children than you did. Or less children. Maybe the career you always assumed would come, never came. Maybe your husband never turned into the man you assumed he would when you got married. Maybe you were lucky enough to have most things turn out just as you hoped only to find it didn’t make you as happy as you thought it would when it happened. God knows all of these and even the ones you're not ready to admit to yourself.
Our natural response to this is probably akin to fear. We don’t want anyone to know us at this level. But, the Psalmist doesn’t seem concerned about God knowing him at this depth. He seems to delight in it.
Read verses 7-12. There is nowhere you can go where God isn’t with you. Omnipresence is the epitome of a churchy word. In fact, it is so churchy we don’t even use it in church, it is reserved for scholars and systematic text books. When you think of God’s omnipresence it becomes some sort of complicated math problem. How can God be everywhere all at once? How can he be with the underground church in Kabul and with me on my back porch in Urbandale, Iowa right now at the same time? But, Psalm 139 isn’t interested in physics problems. The Psalm is interested in the God who is there with you, always, even to the end of the age.
The Psalmist poetically lays out all the dimensions he can think of - the highest heavens, the deepest pit, the east and the west, riding the wings of the dawn to the “uttermost parts of the sea” and concludes that “even there your hand shall lead me/ and your right hand shall hold me” (vs. 10).
At your loneliest moment this past year - when you were stuck in your house day after day waiting for someone to call, wondering why nobody called or emailed or texted, wondering what everybody else could be doing in their homes - you were never alone. There is no depth of darkness or despair that is too dark for God - “even the darkness is not dark to you/ the night is as bright as the day.”
This section of Psalm 139 is the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 8:38-39:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I would add no disease, no political action or inaction, no level of dementia*, no mistake, no cultural moral drift, no school board decision, no conspiracy theory nor doomsday prediction, nor natural disaster - as much as these can separate us from those we love dearly and even take their life or ours - none of them can separate us from the firm grip with which we are held fast by our loving Father.
“What is your only comfort in life and in death?” The Heidelberg Catechism asks.
“That I am not my own but belong, body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
Read verses 13-18. God saw us before we ever took shape (vs. 16). And God knows where we are going before we get there. I appreciate how the ESV’s syntax here makes you work for the meaning:
In your book were written, every one of them,
The days that were formed for me,
When as yet there was none of them. (vs. 16)
From conception (knit together in my mother’s womb) until death “Jesus commands my destiny.” Again, if we rip this out of context and turn it into a systematic theology topic things get fuzzy. Does this mean everything in life is predetermined? Are we just programmed robots? Did God fore-ordain me stubbing my toe on the dresser this morning? I realize people have those questions when passages like this are read. But, that is never how the Bible speaks about God’s providence.
Again, the Heidelberg says it well.
27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. God’s providence is His almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand.
Providence is not an equation to solve, how God is working through the circumstances of your life may never become clear until we see him face to face. Instead, God’s providence is always presented as a comfort in which to rest. It is how we persevere. Your life, right now, is perfectly positioned for how God plans to shape you into Christ’s likeness. Your life is not perfect, I am sure. For some of us it feels nothing less than hell on earth. And for all of us it would be if not for one thing, God is with you. “I awake, and I am still with you” (vs. 18).
Jesus experienced full God-forsakenness on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” so that you would never have to. The great promise of Psalm 139 is that no matter how unfavorable your conditions, God is still the ruler yet. A good work has been started in you and it will be finished, rain or shine for "all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand."
This God is your God.
I must admit I am still trying to figure out how verses 19-24 fit in with the rest of the Psalm. Someday I’ll get that down on paper. For now, let me share a story that I think illustrates Psalm 139.
Katie and I get together with college friends of mine once a year for a weekend in northern California. It is one of the highlights of the year. We laugh a lot and eat well. We catch up on how the year went and what all the kids are up to. We always leave wishing we lived closer and could do this more often.
We missed 2018 because our gathering happened a week after my mom died. And so in 2019 we hadn’t seen everyone for a couple of years. A lot happens in two years. But, when it was my time to share I told about the last couple of days our family had with my mom.
Her heart attack left her in a coma for about a week. Each day was the same. We would wake up and drive to the hospital and sit in the waiting room together and one or two of us at a time would go back and sit with her and talk to her, not knowing what she could hear or understand, if anything. And about 9pm we’d drive back home, sleep and do the same thing the next day. We weren’t sure if we would ever hear her talk or see her look at us again.
I saw the goodness of my family during those long days in the ICU. I saw my brother’s generosity, which I had always known, extended to the other families making the same hard vigil for their loved ones with us every day. He would order food for each meal and share with everyone around us. I saw my niece and nephew-in-law selflessly serve each other and us even with their new-born in tow. And their beautiful daughter reminded us that a new generation had begun even as one comes to an end. I got to talk with my sister about how lucky we were to have the parents we did as we walked to the Starbucks down the street. I got to jog around Des Moines with my other brother when we needed to get out of the hospital each day and breathe a little. I got to see them all care for my dad and each other.
We made the decision to remove the respirator on Friday of that week I think. It was really the only way to see if her lungs would be able to work on their own. And they did for about three days. This was long enough for her to wake up on Saturday. And for about twenty-four hours we had my mom back. She could recognize who we were. She could answer our questions. She asked about family members who weren’t there. She followed along as I read to her.
Early Monday morning we got the call that it was time. And so we all rushed to the hospital. Her breathing had slowed almost to a halt. They gave her morphine to help her relax. I think at least twelve of us crowded into her room. We read some Scripture. We prayed. And then my dad looked at my mom and told her who all was in the room and said to her, “We love you. And God loves you.” And my mom whispered, “I know.” And she took her last breath moments after.
The whole scene was a gift. Terrible in its sadness and yet holy in ways we will never forget.
The question our friends asked that was asked that prompted me to tell that story was where did we see Jesus at work in the last year?
And so I said that I saw Jesus at work primarily in those around me. In my family that week in the hospital. In Katie over and again as she cared for me and the kids when we were so sad and how we were able to care for her in her sadness. In a loving congregation who cared deeply for all of us that year and allowed me to be absent when I needed to be.
As I sat on the couch at my friend’s cabin in Santa Cruz, tears flowing pretty steadily at this point, I told them that I had been telling people about God’s love for years, hopefully in one way or another every Sunday morning. But that year I had experienced God’s love. And there is a difference between knowing and experiencing.
Psalm 139 is about experiencing the reality of God in all the realities of life.
Jonathan Edwards once wrote:
“This God, to whom there is none in heaven to be compared, nor any among the sons of the mighty to be likened– this God who is from everlasting to everlasting, an infinitely powerful, wise, holy, and lovely being, who is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, is your God.
This God, whom you have heard so much about - immortal, invisible, God only wise - is not just God out there, this God is your God.
* For a moving reflection on Psalm 139 and dementia check out “Even Dementia is Not Dark to God” by Cynthia Fischer here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/even-dementia-not-dark/
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