Psalm 139 "Search Me"

Psalm for Today = 139:1-3, 23-24

v. 1-3, 

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways…

v. 23-24

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

   

Comments:

I love this psalm for its revelation of God’s omniscience (his all-knowing) and his omnipresence (his being everywhere). There is even one section that hints at his omnipotence (he is seen as the Creator). His knowledge and his presence are the repeated themes that bring such comfort. As I read this psalm again today I was pondering the beginning and the ending which share the same idea…searching me.

The psalmist is comforted by the fact that God has searched him and knows all there is to know about his habits, thoughts, and lifestyle, and yet not only remains present in his life but is completely inescapable! 

After talking about the amazing knowledge of God, he concludes the psalm by asking God to search him, test him, to see if there is “any grievous way in me” (v.24).

I don’t know if these two passages today cause you to ask some questions but they prompt me to ask, why would you ask God to search you if you have already said that he has already searched you? Isn’t it a redundant request?

It is one thing to acknowledge that God knows everything about you and another to invite him to keep searching and knowing everything about your life to keep you on the path to the Celestial City. I have been listening to Nate Currin’s new folk album Pilgrim, based on John Bunyan's classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, and perhaps that has helped to accentuate the journeying aspect of the life of faith for me today. The psalmist realized that he had not arrived yet and therefore needed the continued guidance of the Lord. Keep me on your path, Jesus! 

It is important for us to not slip into a mindset of having arrived. When we think we have arrived we stop learning, stop seeking, and stop growing in grace. Let’s rest in the knowledge that God knows all about us and yet loves us, and at the same time let’s actively invite the Holy Spirit to convict, instruct, guide, and comfort as only he can!