Week 20 Psalm 139
In 139 the writer is preoccupied with the fact that the Lord knew everything about him. And he didn’t just know…he took interventionary steps: you chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. But the Lord’s comprehensive knowledge didn’t seem to bother him at all. Really the only problem was: such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to know!
The writer realized he couldn’t dope out the totality of the Lord’s operating capacity. He knew that his own knowledge-deficit was pretty sizable. But the fact that he didn’t know everything didn’t get him in a big psychic contort. It just was what it was.
In the second paragraph the writer wonders – hypothetically – if it was possible to escape the Lord’s scrutiny…
Since the Lord’s in heaven I could hide in the place of the dead.
Yeah except for the fact that Lord has full access to the nether world.
Hmmm…
I could hide in the dark.
Wrong again. With the Lord: the night shines as bright as the day.
So there’s no escaping him.
But the two things I notice in 139 are that a) the Lord has exhaustive awareness of the writer and b) the writer seems fine with that.
Sure…he could say the Lord is invasive sinister dangerous objectionable revolting – he’s maybe even contravening Alberta’s Privacy Laws.
But that doesn’t sound like the writer’s take. He thinks it’s a good thing.
Note: quotes from Psalm 139:3, 6, 12 (NLT)