Remaining - Psalm 139
Readings for this week June 10 - 14
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Day 1 – Deeply and Unavoidably Known
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 139:1-6
With God, there is no point in hiding. With God, there is no need to hide. But we continue to do so, whether from a desire to be in control and not cede ground to outside influence, or from fear of having our shame and sin exposed. However, faithful followers of God should welcome his scrutiny of our hearts and desires, and not just because we know it is useless to resist an all-powerful God who knows everything about us anyway, but because we recognise the perfect loving authority of the one who made us and who has entered a relational covenant with us. We want to be in control, we want to have the ultimate say about who knows what about us and how much we let others into our lives. But we cannot live this way with God. He already knows all about us; we should open ourselves up to his Spirit who seeks to heal and transform us.
However deep the layers of the human soul and psyche, God penetrates to the heart of who we are with a knowledge far more comprehensive than anything a lifetime of experience or study could possibly provide. He knows more about us than we do, from the external surface features of events and what we decide to reveal to the world, to our hidden internal drives and hurts and dreams. To have a true, deep, transformative relationship with God – something he longs for with us – requires acknowledging that we can’t hide from him, confessing our failings, and doing away with all the covers and (self)deceptions we hide behind.
Questions to Consider
How does knowing God knows you so much more completely than you could ever know yourself make you feel? Why?
Prayer
Lord God, thank you for your love, a love that knows me and works in me to transform me day by day. Help me be honest about who I am and who you are, so that you can work in me more effectively. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – The Opportunity of Every Moment
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 139:7-12
Our entire life is the arena for God’s presence with us, and everything we do and every place we go presents an opportunity for us to find him and be with him. He is always with us; there is nowhere we can go where he is not already. We don’t just need to wait to be with God in certain places or seek him when big decisions are looming. We can hear his guiding, prompting, warning voice in the opportunities, limitations, giftings and circumstances of our everyday lives, no matter where we are. If we can truly see ourselves as faithful servants of God – his ‘sheep’ – and obey accordingly, then every moment of our lives can become a place where we listen for his voice. This allows us to offer more of ourselves to him.
Our God-given hopes and desires are another way in which we can listen and discern God’s message to us. Our true and ultimate desire is God, is to be with God. And that very desire is planted in us by God; often our desire is a God-given gift that, with careful discernment and submission, can be a further way in which he speaks to us. Following some of our desires would be ruinous for ourselves and others. But learning which desires are implanted in us by God, and prayerfully seeking to discover how we should follow them, is another way in which God leads us and communicates with us. We need to sift our desires – sin always crouches at the door, waiting to warp and corrupt and twist what is good; this is why discernment and judgement are needed.
Questions to Consider
What experiences have you had when being with God? How has he communicated with you and what has he said? How were you changed?
Prayer
Gracious God, help me see greater ways in which you can speak to me and look for more opportunities to listen to you. Give me greater vision and imagination too so I can listen more and listen deeper. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – A Deeper Knowing of Ourselves
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 139:13-16
Spending time with God leads to a greater experience of God and therefore to a deeper knowledge of God, his mind, his heart and his ways. But as well as leading deeper into God, time with God also leads us deeper into ourselves. We are only truly known in God, but we are not just known by God: we also become known to ourselves. The one who created our innermost being knows us and knows what we need to learn about ourselves, and how we need to be transformed. As our true status as a beloved child of God is affirmed – and reaffirmed – through encounter with our Heavenly Father, we also become more aware of who we are as his child and the plans he has for us, “the days ordained for [us]” (v.16). He speaks to us and tells us who we are – who we truly are – and, if we will listen, we come to know ourselves better the more we listen to the voice of the one who made us.
Through the Spirit we are transformed and changed more and more into the person God wants us to be. We become more aware of who we are in God, what gifts he is growing in us, his plans for us – and so we become more aware of ourselves, how we operate, what makes us tick, where we fit, what God wants us to do. We aren’t seeking God just to achieve some sort of personal self-actualisation for our own benefit. We are doing so in order to become our God-created selves for his glory and for the growth of his kingdom in us and in his world.
Questions to Consider
How is prayer helping you become more self-aware? How is your prayer life contributing to personal change in you?
Prayer
Lord God, thank you for not only making me, but for shaping me and helping me see who I really am in you. Give me a strong desire to be more who you want me to be. Your vision, not mine. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – Pure Transformation
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 139:17-22
God wants our hearts and minds to be pure, transparent and completely open to him in all ways, and at all times. The message of this psalm is exactly the message Jesus proclaimed in the sermon on the mount when he declared that it is the pure in heart who see God and are blessed (Matthew 5:8). From such a pure heart (along with a good conscience and sincere faith) comes love (1 Timothy 1:5). God ‘tests’ our heart as part of the purifying and refining process so that all the dross of sin and evil desire might be purged from us. We know we cannot be transformed into such a state without God’s help and intervention – without submitting and laying ourselves open to him, the one who knows us better than we know ourselves. His thoughts won’t become our thoughts without his help.
Because Jesus shares perfect communion with the Father, through the saving work of his passion on the cross and his resurrection, he also shares it with us. Sometimes such intimacy can be painful. Sin and selfishness cannot survive in the presence of God. Nobody likes correction and being shaped and transformed can hurt sometimes. Spending time with God allows him to (gently) point out our failings and (lovingly) mould us into his own likeness. After all, as the one who has known us from before we were knitted together in the womb and knows who we are capable of being when found in him, we can trust that the work he does in us is for good, and that it will be completed in the fullness of his kingdom.
Questions to Consider
What is God doing in you right now? What do you hope he will do? Why?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, make me more like you. Give me more of your heart and mind, more of your love and compassion, your mercy and forgiveness, so that others may see you through me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – The Only Response
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 139:23-24
After all that has been said, all that the Psalmist has acknowledged about the power and majesty of God and his (the Psalmist’s) inability to evade God, to hide from him, to successfully escape his attention, what is there left for the Psalmist to do? When you know you are so intimately known by God, that your mind and heart are open books to him, what response can be given? Like the Psalmist, all we can do is acknowledge that we are completely at the mercy of God’s testing and guidance, and petition him to look at us, see what we do, and mercifully love us. In God’s omniscience we find the reason for completely trusting him. He knows and sees all, us included. In the face of such knowledge comes acceptance of his love and openness to his guidance.
Just like we saw in Psalm 1, we have again the image of the two ways, one leading to destruction, the other to true life lived in the presence of the loving God. God knows whether we are walking the road to torment or the road that leads to life. We know that we can trust him to lead us into the fullness of life, correct us when we stray, love us when we are tired and can love no more. Like the Psalmist, we should be confident in petitioning God to try us, to search us, see which way we are walking, and lead us to eternal life. Everything we do is so completely embedded in him, that such trust and faith is the only possible response.
Questions to Consider
How have you been giving more and more of yourself to God lately? How have you been spending time with him? What else do you long for from him?
Prayer
Almighty God, you are Lord and you know best what I should do and how I should live. You are merciful and loving; I bow down before you and praise you for all you have done and will do. I love you, Lord. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)