As I read this psalm and how it waxes lyrical about the delight of a watchful and inescapable God, it strikes me that if I read these verses as a non-Christian they would fill me with alarm and anxiety. The kind of anxiety you only get when you know you are being watched. You start to over think every decision and wonder how your actions are being judged.
What am I doing?
Am I getting it right?
What is right?
Why am I being watched?
I am not a child!
Why am I getting so worked up?
However by the grace of God we can be joyful in the knowledge that God’s watchfulness is not helicopter parenting or big brother gone mad. It is an outpouring of love as shown in verses 1-12. This psalm (like many before) was written by David, who was keenly aware that firstly, God knew him entirely and secondly, was with him constantly.
Verses 1-6 examine how well God knows his creation, his church. In our church wonderfully there are many different types of people. There will be some of us that feel we are totally surrounded by others from the moment we wake to when our heads finally hit the pillow, equally there will be others who have much more solitary days. God sees it all, even if no one else does. Verse 2-3 say; “you know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar”.
So God sees out everyday lives and he knows exactly how we are feeling. We don’t need to explain anything to him. There is no getting lost in translation. He is familiar with all our ways. This, to me is a great comfort, but it also calls into question whether my actions and thoughts are as godly as they could or should be.
Verses 7-18 discusses the omnipresent nature of God. In verse 7 alone David praises the mighty and universal nature of God by saying “ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? He isn’t trying to evade God, he is just trying to show how massive and powerful our God truly is. He is so great in fact it is often beyond our understanding. It seems that we sometimes catch glimpses in the “wings of the dawn”. Spurgeon wrote “Light flies with inconceivable rapidity, and it flashes far afield beyond all human ken; it illuminates the great and wide sea, and sets its waves gleaming afar; but its speed would utterly fail if employed in flying from the Lord.” Even in verses 11-12 “darkness will not be dark to you”. In darkness we may be able to hide our shameful actions from each other, but God is our light that shines like the brightest day and we can never hide from him.
Next come arguably the most famous lines in this Psalm. ”You are fearfully and wonderfully made.” (These lines could probably have their own blog post!) Moreover these words have been used to encourage many Christians who feel they aren’t good enough or intelligent enough or attractive enough. These words show us that we were designed, there was time and thought put into our creation, we were “woven together” embroidered by Gods own hand. Who are we to tell him he got it wrong!
Lastly Verses 19-24 Switch from an atmosphere of praise to a prayer for deliverance. This may sound like David is exclaiming how much he hates Gods enemies and is trying to goad God into a fight, but David knows that one day God will show his supreme authority to his enemies. He also knows that we are taught to love our neighbour, so it is not the person he hates, but their sin.
So to finish David asks God in verses 23 and 24 to check his heart and remove any wickedness. This speaks to the relentless love God feels for us, even though he knows all the secret thoughts we have in the darkness. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and he will put us on a path that sanctifies us, removing from us our wickedness and bringing us closer to him. To close let that be our prayer. Lets pray to thank and marvel that our God who knows our wretched souls so completely loves anyway and invites us to spend an eternity with him.
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