God Knows Your Journey

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139

This psalm, written by David, describes three attributes of God. He is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (everywhere present), and omnipotent (all-powerful). David knew God very well, being a man after God’s own heart; he could probably have talked about God for hours.

In this 24-verse psalm, David tells us all we need to know about God. This psalm also tells us a lot about ourselves. And says all we need to know about the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception to death. (Akin, 283)

Who this morning stood in front of your mirror and quoted verses 13 and 14, “Thank you for making me so wondrously complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it.” (13-14) I know when I stand in front of the mirror, I am very critical of what I see. I pick apart all my self-perceived faults and flaws, wishing this or that looked different. I rarely thank God for making me the way I am, though I should.

Henry Ford revolutionized mass production when he created the moving assembly line, which improved time efficiency and reduced the price of the car by over $500. God, however, did not use this method to create us. Each piece that made up our bodies was designed specifically for each person, making us all unique. He created our individual bodies and souls to fulfill the purpose he has for each of our lives.

The intricacy of our bodies is mind-blowing. Dr. James Merritt, Southern Baptist pastor, describes the complexity of people, “A single thread of DNA from one human cell contains information equivalent to a library of 1,000 volumes or 600,000 printed pages with 500 words on every page. At conception, one embryo has the equivalent of 50 times the amount of information contained in the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. (The Mystery of Creation)

As Pastor Ray Stedman writes in Psalms: Folk Songs of Faith, “[David] says, in effect, By just looking at my own respiratory system, my circulatory system, the marvelous functioning of my eyes, the workings of my ears, my sense of smell, my sense of hearing, the wonder of human reproduction – these are complex organic systems that work together so beautifully that couldn’t have possibly arisen by random chance. There’s an immense intellect behind it all!” (276)

When I consider God’s creative powers, I think of the many personalities he created. Each of us is just enough different to make life interesting. I saw a t-shirt once that said, When God made me, he grinned and said, “This will be fun! There are a lot of people who could honestly wear this t-shirt.

When he created me, he knew that I would have a difficult time coming to terms with upsetting news on the spot. So often in my life, God has told me about something that would happen in the future so that I would have time to prepare myself emotionally. Recently, I was visiting a friend who was in the hospital. She had had her third round of chemo, and her body was fighting the effects. She required a blood transfusion and other medical support. While I was visiting her, God told me that she would soon be with him.

Through the lens of the psalms, we see ourselves from God’s perspective, including our hidden sins. Ray Stedman

I was not surprised several weeks later when I learned she had been put on hospice. When she died, I felt the loss; I still do. But God’s preparation helped me handle the loss. 

I think the absolute most amazing thing about this topic is that God created all of this out of nothing. No matter what we create, we must start with something. If we want to crochet a blanket, we need yarn and a crochet hook. If we want to bake cookies, we need to gather all the ingredients. God doesn’t. If we look at the creation of the world as described in Genesis, we learn, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.” (1-2)

Even when we were a tiny speck invisible to the naked eye, God knew what our lives would look like. David writes, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (16) This section of the psalm explores God’s omniscience, his all-knowing ways. He knew someday we would all be gathered in this room, worshiping him together. Way before the bishop ordained me twenty years ago, God knew I would be appointed to your church.

When he called me into ministry, and I asked him to give me time to raise my children first. He knew I would ask for time. Just another way that God prepared me for the future. This knowledge on God’s part doesn’t mean that we are just robots at his beck and call. This verse doesn’t contradict the idea of free will. We choose every day whether we want to walk in God’s will or our own. This verse tells us that he has already written our decisions and their consequences in his book. And then he takes what he knows and, “...causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28

Next, the psalmist asks God to do something we should do regularly, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you...” (23). To me, inviting God into my inner thoughts is a scary proposition. I know he is always with me, and we’ve learned in this psalm that God knows our innermost thoughts. But if we don’t specifically ask God to sort through and correct our thoughts, we can pretend they’re all good.

By inviting God in, we are essentially asking him to critique and correct our thoughts, which will, no doubt, require action on our part. God will use this opportunity to teach us how to be more like him, which will require us to submit to his will and ways. Most of the time, I want to be like Jesus, but there are times when I want to wallow in my anger at someone for what they did to me, and I certainly don’t want to obey God’s command to love that person as I love myself.

David’s life was better when he journeyed on the path of righteousness, and ours will be, too. When we ask God daily to search our hearts and correct our sinful thoughts, we will live with more joy than we can possibly comprehend. As difficult as it can be to live in total submission to God, it is the only path to a joyful life.

In closing, I would like to share what I think was the best paragraph Ray Stedman wrote in his book about the Psalms. He says, “God has given us a wonderful treasure in the book of the Psalms. It is a source of comfort for troubled souls. But the psalms were not merely written to enable us to see reality. Through the lens of the psalms, we see ourselves from God’s perspective, including our hidden sins.” (284)

And I would add that the Psalms remind us that God created us, that as God’s creations we are marvelously and wonderfully made, and that God delights in us.