Intimacy – Psalm 139

Something magical exploded in my heart when I became a Christian in 1976. Fairy tails do come true! I initially felt as though I was the frog who had become a prince but that turned out to be a pale allusion. Reality had me bound over for execution only to find someone had paid my debt, enabling me to walk out of my chains as a free man. To my amazement, it was the Judge himself who had ransomed me. Neither was I released to just wander the streets. This same Judge had also adopted me; I was an orphan who had become a son of God! The Judge had become my Father! In view of my radically altered life, it is understandable that I would start my Christian experience with a huge “Yes!” in my heart. “Whatever You say God, whatever you ask, my answer will be “yes!” This was my heart’s true intention. Was I ever tempted to back crab on this commitment? Oh yes.

A place where I first started noticing this “yes” operating in my heart was when I read the scriptures. Prior to 1976, the Bible had been an indecipherable tome. Even though I did not grasp everything intellectually as I began reading, there must have been a spirit-to-spirit connection because I found myself agreeing, “Yes this is true; Yes this is life; Yes this is the way!

Psalm 139 is a perfect example. It was the first passage of scripture that really grabbed me. I memorized it because of the mysterious and powerful “Yes” it elicited when I first read it. This psalm breaks down the overarching theme of intimacy into specifics. I will never regret that these realities were imprinted on my heart 39 years ago. Time and experience have only reinforced them. They have been indispensable reference points during those seasons when I could not see, which I have discovered are not uncommon for citizens of an invisible kingdom.

My heart dropped anchor into the following realities from Psalm 139;

1)  I am no accident. I exist because He intentionally created me.
2) I will exist on earth for the time he allotted 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. (My permission does not hurt.)
6) The thoughts I have about Him will be numerous and precious in value.
7) Yet, bracketed as they are by mortality, my thoughts, however valuable, are too frail to grasp the fulness of God, in his immortality.
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

Lightened by the weight of these words, my “yes” found its expression in King David’s own words which I adopted as my own…..

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 the ‘yes’ in my heart!”

It is helpful to know that God’s memory is not faulty but it is selective. Once we repent of our sin, He forgets them, by choice. My point is this; our Journey Into intimacy begins afresh each day. While they may be troubling, our pasts are of no account. In fact, our deepest wounds and failures are to be our springboards into intimacy. No greater opportunity exists than in our personal darkness. Creation, though subjected to futility, intuitively longs to see the children’s transformation. It is Father’s heart that our sorrow be transformed into joy in the face of our enemy. Our light shines the brightest where we are liberated from personal darkness. It is Father’s heart that where evil has abounded, grace shall abound all the more.

When “intimacy” is alien to us, a heart-to-heart conversation with God is needed. No one who has ever come to Christ with honest questions has been turned away. I am amazed that, in his patience, he even listens to our bitterness and unbelief when we dress them up as questions! When the human heart turns toward God, even in disorienting pain, Christ is receiving some reward for His suffering…..

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

To enjoy intimacy with God, we must ultimately turn toward him with whatever is in us. We must say “yes” to this transparency. He sees it all anyway. It is here where we will taste and see that He is good. It is in this engagement where we will discover intimacy. Both the “yes’s” and the “no’s” of our heart will be refined in the awaiting encounter.

Father, that you freely offer yourself to us who were once condemned, is something we pray will never be lost on us. Search out the things that would dull our appreciation of you. Create and sustain our “yes’s”. Put our “no’s” to death. And with David, we pray that You would be exceedingly rough on our enemies – anyone or anything that would hinder our intimacy with you. Receive the reward for Your suffering – our intimate encounter with you. Amen.

 

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