How well-known do you want to be? I’m not referring to fame or visibility but rather transparency, vulnerability, and authenticity. Not only that, but who gets to see it? Often, we don’t even want to see ourselves clearly and honestly, let alone be truly seen by others, even those closest to us. What about being seen and known by God? Hebrews 4:13 says that “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Is that a little frightening to you, as it is to me? Too intimate?
I hope that you will read the article on page three of this newsletter, written by my friend, Marj, who was the director of our local adult literacy center during the short time I volunteered there. Here, she writes about God’s intimate knowledge of us as described in Psalm 139, and how we should welcome it and take advantage of it by listening to Him.
I hope, too, that you read Psalm 139 in its entirety, as Marj encourages you to do. In the psalm, David poetically depicts God’s omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence – all in loving relation to our being and even our creation. It is humbling – don’t you think? – to be so well-known and still so well-loved. George MacDonald wrote that “to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.” Of course, God continues to consider us and create in us even after our birth.
It seems that we have two possible responses to such intimate knowledge that God has of our spiritual nakedness. Our instinctive, pride-driven response is to close (and clothe) ourselves and try to hide from God, just as we tend to hide from others and even ourselves. Ask Adam and Eve how that went. “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10). Those fig leaves from the garden are not much different from our attempts at self-righteousness, by the way. A better response is shared by David in verses 23 and 24 of Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” These final verses of the psalm seem to echo the first one (“you have searched me and known me”). Not only that, they serve as an acknowledgement that God’s searching and knowing of us is actually a good thing – not frightening or too intimate.
It was said of David that he was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14, Acts 13:22), and here David is not daunted by the “omni-ness” of God; he wants to make sure that he is not like the wicked men he had asked God to slay in the preceding verses. He wants to be righteous, to be led in God’s everlasting way, so he embraces his vulnerability and invites God to inspect him, to assess his heart and his mind. Later, Jeremiah will write, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The prophet then answers his own question with words from God: “‘I the LORD search the heart and test the mind’” (Jer. 17:9-10). Samuel wrote, “The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). Of course, David knows this; at another time, he asked of God, “Create in me a clean heart . . . renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
This heart and spirit renewal always requires God’s discernment. Charles Spurgeon wrote of Psalm 139: “The Lord judges our active life and our quiet life. He discriminates our action and our repose, and marks that in them which is good and also that which is evil. There is chaff in all our wheat, and the Lord divides them with unerring precision.” So, here at the end of Psalm 139, David needs his chaff removed, just like we do. We need good and evil to be separated. If we want evil to be punished (Psalm 139:19), for His winnowing fork to do its work in judgment upon the sinful world (Matt. 3:12), then we need to invite God to discern, divide, and dispose, to remove all that would prevent us from walking in the everlasting way (Psalm 139:24).
Ultimately, David desires to be guided by God. “Lead me in the way everlasting,” he writes. What does that look like, David? Perhaps it looks like Proverbs 3:5-6. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” We can also be led in the everlasting way by following the Son of David – the everlasting Jesus Christ, who said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Finally, we can be searched, known, and led in the everlasting way by daily reading the Word. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword . . . discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). When we open our Bibles, we invite God’s close inspection and clear direction.
