**I am obsessed with Psalms. I think we all know that by now...
Earlier this week as I was praying I asked God to give me a new passage of scripture to hang out in for while
(as in read, reread, and reread for...however long. Usually at least a month) and I ended up in
Psalm 139 (I tend to end up in Psalms, A LOT.). Then the next day, as one of my pastors was giving his message, he referenced Psalm 139 and encouraged out congregation to go home and spend repeated amounts of time in that scripture. *Total confirmation. God, you're so cool!*
Anyway, it is one of those passages that I have read a zillion times, and I hear it quoted all the time, but spending some more time with it really caused me to fall in love with it and just be more in awe of God. It talks about God knowing every detail of my life and how he is actively involved in it. He knows every thought before I think it, ever word before it comes out of my mouth. And He knew all of my days even before I had lived a single one of them. Everything is in His hands! That is...ridiculously amazing. Totally unfathomable. Blows me away. And puts me at rest: my life doesn't have to be in my hands because He has had it all planned out PERFECTLY since before the beginning of time!!!
So, without further ado, here is the 139th Psalm, in The Message translation (click here for NIV or ESV)
1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
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!
7-12 Is there anyplace 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.
13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in 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'd even lived one day.
17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I'll never comprehend them!
I couldn't even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!
23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I'm about;
See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
And, as usual, I tend to link times in my life to passages of scripture, as well as
songs. So of course I have a song to go along with this. Recently I have been listening to (the amazing) Jason Upton and playing his song
"No Sacrifice" (look it up. On his -rather old -album Faith. It'll mess you up) on repeat as well as playing it myself on piano
(Jason Upton is GREAT if you are looking for keyboardy worship leader music. I love him, you should too.)
So, here are the song lyrics.
To you I give my life, not just the parts I want to
To you I sacrifice these dreams that I hold on to
(Because)Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is stronger than mine
This is no sacrifice
Here's my life
To you I give the gifts Your love has given me
How can I hoard the treasures that you've designed for free?
To you I give my future, as long as it may last
To you I give my present, To you I give my past
My God is so big that I cannot even wrap my mind around it. Scriptures (and songs inspired by God as revealed in Scripture) like this remind me of that and make me fall in love with him all over again.
