Psalm 139

As a brand new Christian in 1976, it truly seemed like something magical had exploded in my heart. I felt as though I was the frog who had become a prince. As it turned out I had but that wasn’t the half of it. It turns out that I was that guilty and condemned criminal bound over for execution only to find someone else had paid my debt and enabled me to walk out of my chains as a free man. If that weren’t enough, to my amazement, it was the Judge who paid that capital expense for my debt. Neither was I released to just wander the streets. The Judge Himself had adopted me . I was an orphan who had become a son of the Most High God. The Judge had become MY Father! I started my Christian experience with a huge “YES” in my heart. “To whatever You say God, my answer will be ‘YES’!” At least I aspired that it would be.

A place that I frequently noticed this “yes” response was when I read the Bible. Prior to 1976, this book had been intimidating and incomprehensible. Now, when I read scripture, I noticed my heart would respond with a “yes”. Even though I did not grasp everything intellectually, I agreed; “Yes this is true; yes this is life; yes this is the way.” Psalm 139 was the first passage of scripture that really grabbed me. I memorized it because of the strange and powerful “YES” I experienced when I first read it. This psalm breaks down the overarching theme of intimacy into many specific realities. I will never regret that these realities were initially imprinted onto my heart 37 years ago. Time and experience has only reinforced them. They have served me well (particularly in times when I could not see a thing) as reference points to the invisible kingdom of which I had become a citizen.

Here are some of the things I internalized and adopted as benchmarks from Psalm 139;

1) I exist because He was intentional in my creation. In other words; I was no accident.
2) I will exist on this earth for the time He has allotted for me.
3) The job He did in creating me was awe-inspiringly wonderful.
4) Everything I do or say is known in perfect detail (even in advance).
5) He is always searching and working in my heart.
6) The thoughts I have about Him will be numerous and precious in value.
7) But as wonderful as those thoughts are, they are far to frail (bracketed by my mortality) to fully grasp the scope of who He is (in His immortality) and all that He oversees (in eternity).
8) Even if I tried, I could not escape His notice and His care.
9) Even if things go dark on me, things are always well lit with God

After I read this passage and considered its import I wanted to respond in kind with David,

Search me O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful ways in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.

In other words, “Please Father, don’t let anything interfere with this ‘yes’ in my heart!”

One of the many amazing things about God is that His memory is not faulty but it is selective. Once we repent of our sin, He forgets them. Its not a malfunction. Its His choice. My point in saying this is that a new chapter of our stories, “our journeys into intimacy” can begin afresh each new day. While they may be troubling to us, our pasts are of no account to Him. Where we have been most traumatized by life, Christ desires that those specific places become our springboards into intimacy (not the millstones about our necks we are apt to view them as). As far as it concerns us, no greater opportunity exists to manifest His glory in this earth, than for us to permit Him to transform our sorrow into joy right in the face of our enemies and in the face of a creation that intuitively longs to see redemption. It is His will in heaven that where evil has abounded, grace shall abound all the more.

If the word “intimacy” throws us and we don’t have a clue what its about, all that is needed is a real conversation with God (prayer).  No one who has ever come to Christ with their honest heart questions has been turned away. (Some, I believe have though who have only dressed up their bitterness and unbelief as questions. This would just be complaining) When the human heart turns toward God (instead of away) Christ is receiving some of the reward of His suffering.

 If I be lifted up, men shall be drawn unto Me.

It is in this engagement that we discover His faithfulness and we taste and see that He is so good. The yes’s (and the no’s) of our heart will be greatly influenced in this awaiting conversation.

Father, that You daily offer us the privilege to live as sons and daughters in Your holy presence, persons who were once unclean, hopelessly lost, enslaved and condemned, is something we pray that will never be lost on us. Create and sustain that “yes” within us. Search out those things in our hearts that would dull our perception of eternal reality. And like David, we pray that You would be exceedingly rough on our enemies – those whose mission it is to blunt our awareness of Your intimate presence. Receive the reward of Your suffering in us Lord – our enjoyment of the intimate connection You have reestablished between us and the Father. Amen.