Psalm One Thirty Nine

Why did I chose to name my blog Psalm One Thirty Nine? Where to start. Have you ever read it? Just go ahead and meditate on these few verses from it before I ramble.

"1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain."

If those words do not give you chill bumps then I have no clue what will! This week I decided to venture out into the great outdoors and go down to the dock in my neighborhood with just myself and my Bible. I got settled down and opened up my Bible to Psalm 139. I didn't flip any pages or try to find a different book in it, but instead I just began to read. What I read and what you just read above completely changed my perspective on things and truly opened my eyes to just how Great our God is. In the first verse, the psalmist David writes of how God "perceives our thoughts from afar." I had to read that one over about four times before it really hit me. My God, the Creator of this world and everything on and in it, is able to distinguish my own thoughts..every. single.one.of.them. He knows what I am thinking at all times. Take a moment to think about that. A moment won't even do it justice. The human brain produces on average approximately seventy thousand thoughts per day. There are approximately six billion people on this earth. You do the math. Can you even fathom the fact that God takes the time to know and observe every single thing we think, say and do? A sense of awe-struck fear came over me when I pondered this. I mean just evaluating my thought life makes me cringe. Yet my God sees everything that I think and everything that I do and everything that I say and He forgives me for it all. How refreshing it is to know that God has already forgiven me for IT ALL by the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. Jesus Christ died for the sins I committed yesterday, today and tomorrow. Really, how GREAT is our GOD?! Great does not even do Him justice. No word does. David then goes on to write in verse five, " You hem me in—behind and before; You have laid your hand upon me." God's hand is a constant source of strength. Can you feel it resting upon you? When I think and meditate on it I sure can. No matter how far my sinful life will stray away from Him, His hand remains steady on my shoulder. When I am having a day full of despair and one in which I am in a constant state of sinful thought, it is SO invigorating to know and trust that God's hand is still faithfully upon me and can and WILL steer me in the direction of the cross. But do I truly live my life knowing that God's hand is upon me? Do I wake up everyday with the assurance of that? No, certainly not as much as I need to! Reading this psalm, even just part of it, overwhelmingly encouraged me to become more aware of God's intricate presence in my life. Though I turn my back on Him countless times a day, though a majority of my thoughts are not pleasing or glorifying to Him and though my actions on a daily basis are that of an utter disgrace, my God's hand has never left me and never will. He is a light to the darkness around me. His forgiveness and His mercy astounds me. Goodness gracious I cannot seem to grasp how truly REMARKABLE God is!! "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain."