“Maintaining our focus”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, June 2, 2024
Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18 (Forward, p. 35) CEV p. 640
As I read this psalm for the umpteenth time, I could not help but notice just how often the words ‘you’ or ‘your’ are mentioned. And, in each case, it refers to God and God alone. This means that the psalmist’s attention is entirely and solely on God. So, notice what he has to say about God:
“You have looked deep into my heart”.
“You know all about me”.
“You know when I am resting or when I am working”.
“You discover my thoughts from heaven”.
“You notice everything I do and everywhere I go”.
“You know what I will say before I even speak a word”.
“You protect me from every side with your powerful arm”.
“Nothing about me is hidden from you!”
“I was secretly woven together deep in the earth below, but with your own eyes you saw my body being formed”.
“Even before I was born, you had written in your book everything I would do”.
Many would find God’s all-encompassing knowledge of us stifling and threatening, our psalmist does not. He sees God’s closeness, intimacy, and foreknowledge as something comforting. If God knows him so well, understands him so well, and yet chooses to be with him and support him, what then has he to fear? Indeed, this gives him even more reason to praise God, trust God, and make God the centre of his attention and his focus in life. And, should this not be our focus as well, as God, in equal measure, knows and cares for us as well. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether” (verse 3).
“When troubled, I turn to my wife of 52 years. We have a practice of raising a hand and declaring, ‘Emotional check-in!’ We stop, sit, and listen. It is a time we can be vulnerable, trusting that God is in our midst.
“Psalm 139 may be an emotional check-in with God. The psalmist, presumably a man given the times, marvels that God has searched him out. God has a perfect knowledge of him, perceiving his thoughts from afar; before he utters a word, God knows it. God gently lays a hand on him. Such knowledge is both wonderful and overwhelming. He cannot understand God’s infinite love for him and responds with gratitude, “I will thank you because I am marvellously made.”
“Predawn is my meditative time with God, my check-in. God knows all that I am, even the things I want to remain hidden. At times I want to flee, but God is always there to touch, forgive, and guide me.”
Moving Forward: “Do you have emotional check-ins with God—times when you can be vulnerable?”