The God Who Sees

God, investigate my life;

get all the facts first hand.

I’m an open book to You;

even from a distance you know what I'm thinking.

You know when I leave and when I get back;

   I'm never out of your sight.

You know everything I'm going to say

before I start the first sentence.

I look behind me and you're there,

then up ahead and you're there, too—

your reassuring presence, coming and going.

This is too much, too wonderful—

I can't take it all in!

Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit?

to be out of your sight?

If I climb to the sky, you're there!

If I go underground, you're there!

If I flew on morning’s wings

to the far western horizon,

You'd find me in a minute—

you're already there waiting!

Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!

At night I'm immersed in the light!”

It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you,

night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

you formed me and my mother's womb.

I thank you, High God--you're breathtaking!

Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

I worship in adoration—what a creation!

You know me inside and out,

  you know every bone in my body;

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;

all the stages of my life were spread out before you.

The days of my life all prepared

before I even lived one day.

Your thoughts--how rare, how beautiful!

God, I’ll never comprehend them!

I couldn't even begin to count them—

  anymore than I could count the sand of the sea.

Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!

(Psalm 139: 1-18. Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation)

I wonder if reading these words filled you with delight or with dread—

to be known that intimately?

Is his presence reassuring, as David says?

Is it too much?

Too wonderful?

Too intrusive?

Do you want to run and hide as David did?

Is it overwhelming to think that there's no such place—

a hiding place where God is not?

And then, the “who you are” … the way you see yourself today…

Does that lead you to worship God as “breathtaking”,

as “marvelous”,

as “Your thoughts, how rare, how beautiful”?

Were you taught as I was at high school not to use too many exclamation points in your writing? And yet, here this psalm is peppered with them!

This is our God!

Outrageously in love with his creation!

I wonder what your life could become if you could embrace God's love for you at such a depth, could see yourself through his eyes-- not in the sentimental “When he looks at me, he sees Christ“, but in a realistic “When he looks at me, he sees the unique creation he planned; he sees how the circumstances of my life in ways have warped that image; and he sees how his love can restore what has been lost, the uniqueness of me that is a gift to the world where I live today”.

We all know how imperfectly we live--- the values we say matter to us, let alone the things we say or do that we don't even realize matter.  And yet, here is God, rejoicing over you-- remember how many parables Jesus taught about the celebration of the lost being found. Can you accept that you being you is worth celebrating?

Enter the joy of your Lord today!

And when you goof up, just stop, acknowledge the fault, return to God, ask forgiveness and allow his love to restore you. And forgive yourself--always the most challenging part.

And then walk into your day in peace, in anticipation, in possibility, into joy!