Daily Dose of the Word of God - Psalm 139

Erin Pacheco, Director of Worship

Transcript

Erin Pacheco  0:07  

Welcome to Elmhurst CRC’s Daily Dose of the Word of God.  It’s Friday, January 23, but Sunday is coming. I’m Erin Pacheco.  Each Friday we’ll listen to the voice of the Psalms, which teach us to pray and point us to Jesus. Today’s passage comes from Psalm 139.

Erin Pacheco 0:26  

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me     and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Erin Pacheco 1:28  

As a mother, these verses remind me of ultrasound images. My twin pregnancy was high risk, and so every two weeks, I got a sneak peek at these little people forming inside me. We saw them grow from tiny little gummy bears to strong babies ready to enter the world. We watched their organs form — heart chambers, bladders, kidneys. We measured and monitored and worried and waited. We even got to know their personalities a bit in the process. It felt like cheating. I was mindful that, for most of human history, what happened in the womb was completely mysterious. Secret and wonderful. A space where only God sees. And I was also reminded that, no matter how many glimpses I got, the growth of my babies was still entirely outside my control. They belonged, already, body and soul, to God. Every life is a gift. Every new birth is a miracle. The psalmist imagines God knitting him together in that hidden place. Stitch by stitch, day by day. The whole psalm is a reflection on a God who knows us intimately, inside and out. A God from whom we cannot hide—not by darkness, not by distance. A God who sees each moment, each thought, even before it happens.  I have mixed feelings about being known that thoroughly. On the one hand, there are ugly things about me that I prefer to hide — from others and from myself — and it’s uncomfortable to be reminded that God knows all of that. On the other hand, it’s kind of comforting to know I’m never alone, and I’m always held in the loving hands of God. So this Sunday, come as you are, to the One who knows you and made you. Let’s meet Jesus together, failures and questions and all, and let the Spirit do the secret work of breathing new life into our broken hearts. 

Erin Pacheco 3:54  

Let’s pray. Search me O God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.