Search Me and Know Me – Psalm 139

This psalm is an expression of what the apostle John talks about in his first letter, walking in the light (1 John 1:7).  It is willingly exposing myself to God’s truth and light so that my darkness is exposed as darkness and I am able to be cleansed.  This psalm is also a testimony to the sanctity of life in the womb, and hence a rejection of abortion.

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

O LORD, you have searched me and known me!  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.  You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there!  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.  If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I would count them, they are more than the sand.  I awake, and I am still with you.

Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!  O men of blood, depart from me!  They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain.  Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?  And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?  I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies.

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!  (Psalm 139 ESV)

The observation that God knows all about him makes David uncomfortable, anticipating judgment, and he feels hemmed in by it.  He could flee God but no matter where he went God would still know him intimately.  But he realizes that this intimate knowledge began in the womb as Yahweh formed him and determined the course of his life.  God has been thinking about him all his life and that he is alive now is testament to the fact that Yahweh loves him and wants relationship with him.  So he declares his loyalty to Yahweh by declaring his hatred for God’s enemies and he invites God to know him.  God already does, as David stated at the beginning, but now his invitation to God is a submission to the process God is using to expose darkness in David’s heart, his “grievous ways,” and to bring about holiness, or the way everlasting.  Am I submissive to that process or am I fighting it?