Lent is a time for taking God seriously, for deepening our relationship with our wonderful God. You can’t do much better than study Psalm 139 as a way of thinking about God and ourselves and our relationship with God.
“O Lord you have searched me and known me” says the Psalmist. “You know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.” God knows us intimately. God knows us in fact better than we know ourselves. God sees and knows all our thoughts, and all our actions. God knows what we are going to say, even before we have put it into words. God knows our innermost secret thoughts.
This is probably the clearest expression we have in the Bible of the idea that God is omniscient – all knowing. I don’t know about you but I find that a bit of a sobering and scary idea. I’m not sure that I always want God knowing everything about me because everything about me is not always very nice and good. Sometimes my innermost thoughts are not very charitable or humble – all of those things that good Christians should be. But there is no escaping from God. We are laid bare before God, everything about us, the good, the bad and the ugly. God sees it all. No wonder the Psalmist says “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; too lofty for me to attain”. “I can’t grasp it Lord” he’s saying. “I can’t get my head around this.” Of course we can’t grasp it. God is utterly beyond our comprehension in so many ways.
You know for years I read this Psalm and thought that it was simply a Psalm of praise to God for God’s greatness. But then I had to really study it for a House Group and I realised that actually the Psalmist is having a right royal struggle with and grumble about and complaint to God. A bit like Job in the Old Testament, or Nicodemus in the gospels. Lent is a good time to have a struggle with God – to air your differences and try and get them sorted out.
Listen to what the Psalmist has to say. “You hem me in, behind and before.” It’s like he’s saying you are always in the way. I can’t do anything without you knowing about it.
Then the Psalmist goes on to outline another conviction he has formed about God and another complaint to God. That God is everywhere, is omnipresent. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” The answer is obviously, nowhere. “Lord can’t I go anywhere to get away from you?” There is nowhere to escape the presence of God. If I go to the heavens you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, in Sheol, in the grave, you are still there. God is still present in and beyond death.
Even the darkness is no barrier to God. That is a strangely disturbing yet also very comforting thought. Sometimes we want to use darkness to hide things we are ashamed of. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark because he was scared of what others might think. The Psalmist is saying “Lord, can’t I even hide from you in the dark?” There is no hiding place from our all seeing God. God knows those things of which we are ashamed. God knows them already. There is no place to hide. We have to simply come naked before God with all that we are and have been.
And yet – there are some pretty dark places into which life takes us sometimes, places where we cannot see any light, anything good; places where we cannot see a way forward. But God is there also. God is in the dark places with us. God knows the way forward. “Even the darkness will not be dark to you Lord. The night will shine like the day.”
How has the Psalmist arrived at this conclusion about God? By meditating on creation – on his own creation and all of God’s wonderful works. “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Of course God knows us better than we know ourselves. God was there at our conception, when we were being formed and shaped as human beings. God made you, and me, the unique individuals that we are. Does God make bad things? No. “Your works are wonderful, I know that full well” says the Psalmist.
And God’s works are amazing. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Yes we are. Hold a new born baby and be amazed at the gift of this new, not yet fully formed, human being. Think about your own body and how it functions. You don’t have to consciously breathe, or tell your heart to keep pumping blood around your body. These things happen automatically because that is the way God designed us. Fearful and wonderful it is.
And does God have a plan for you? “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God has his hand on our lives from our conception – “when I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body” – to death and beyond. That might sometimes be uncomfortable, we might struggle against it. But in the end we have to give in to God.
Then suddenly the Psalmist changes gear. “If only you would slay the wicked, O God.” Where did that come from? Well actually it is of a piece with the Psalmist’s approach to God. He is not rejoicing in the destruction of the wicked. Nor is he saying that he wants to kill them. He recognises that justice is in the hands of God. But he is saying “Alright God, you’re so all powerful, why don’t you do something useful with that power and get rid of the wicked?” There are those who oppose God and God’s works. In King David’s day (if this Psalm was written by David) this was a matter of life and death. There were those who sought David’s life and the destruction of his people. Should we not oppose those who oppose God? Should we not stand against those who stand against God? We have to recognise that none of us are totally righteous. None of us are justified by our own righteousness, only by the grace of God as St. Paul reminds us. But sometimes we have to make a stand for God and against what is opposed to God.
Then finally the Psalmist reaches the end of his struggle. If you’re going to struggle with God you’d better be prepared to give in in the end. You might have lots of questions, but in the end you’ll probably get the answer Job got – just shut up now and listen to me. I am the creator, the almighty. Even Nicodemus, though he didn’t get the answer given by Jesus about needing to be born again, gave in in the end and followed Jesus.
This Psalmist places all of his thoughts into the hands of God – including those about the destruction of God’s enemies. “Search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
We could make that our prayer for Lent. Search me O God and know my heart. The more we can open our hearts up to God and allow God to try and test and sift us, the more God will refine out the dross in our lives, those things which are offensive. And God will lead us in the way which leads to life everlasting.