I have been reading.. and re-reading Psalm 139 for a couple of weeks now. It’s one of my favorite scriptures that talks about the omniscience of God, specifically as it pertains to us — His Children. His Handiwork. His Image Bearers.
I don’t think there is ever a time where it is not important for us to marvel at the distinctiveness of our Creator God.
To see Him in a way that is radically amazing.
To stand in awe of all that He is, even though we will never fully comprehend it.
I mean that is, in itself, something that is truly captivating… and low-key scary. We serve a God beyond our imagination. One, of whom, we will never reach the highest peak of understanding because what is elevation to the limitless? What is dimension to the one who has no bounds? What is a part to a whole?
And although we will never know the extent to the One who breathed life into us, we can confidently trust that He knows us fully…
In Psalm 139, David begins his beautiful conversation with God in this way…
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You understand my thoughts from afar…” And as we skip to verse 6, the man after God’s own heart knew that His knowledge failed in comparison to His God… He says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me… (matter of fact) It is too lofty.. too great… too high for me to attain.”
And yup.. that’s the same thought that I continue to have every day that I live this journey with Jesus.. I’m like, “Lord, you really know me better than I know myself.”
Think about it. He is the only one that is capable of knowing you, the real you; the deepest parts of you. He knows your heart… your thoughts… your motives… your intentions… your capabilities… your emotions… your dreams… your weaknesses… your strengths… your likes… your dislikes. He knows literally everything about you… the you back then, the you right now, and the you that you are destined to be.
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you….” And although this was a word Yahweh had for Jeremiah, it is one that you and I can receive as truth in our own lives.
Before anything on your body was ever created… before the seed was planted in your mother’s womb… before you were ever shaped and molded and miraculously made, God knew you.
I don’t know if we truly realize what this means… the depth of God’s knowledge that is. This Hebrew word yada has the basic meaning of “to perceive, know.” But research provides a surplus of definitions — simply, to know by experience.. to be acquainted with.. to know intimately..
This word used in Genesis 4 and 1 Samuel 1 describes man and wife having relations with one another… knowing one in the most intimate of ways.
The word for “searched” in the Hebrew means “to examine intimately.” International Standard Bible Encyclopediasays, when the word is applied to God’s searching the heart or spirit, it means His opening up, laying bare, disclosing what was hidden.
With this definition, I’m back in Genesis, peeping into what is happening in the Garden, when Satan deceives Eve into thinking she could have the same wisdom and knowledge that belonged only to God… and mostly, into thinking that a taste of a fruit, created by the hand of God, would give her a knowingness that God wouldn’t give to her Himself.
And how often do we turn to things, created by God, to give us wisdom concerning ourselves… and our circumstances? We, too, like Adam and Eve, find ourselves hiding from the only one that can open us up and disclose everything that we have been trying to hide… or unknowingly hide.
Because what the Bible tells us, is that God searches us… He examines us… He knows our intentions… He discerns our thoughts from afar… He is acquainted with our ways. David says, “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold O Lord, you know it altogether.”
This is a heavy revelation. God knows you more than you know yourself.
And what is so weighty, is that God knew us before He even formed us. Remember the verse I just read from Jeremiah… God formed your inner parts and knitted you together; but even before this, He knew you.
He knew you intimately and He gave you life.
He held your valuable existence in His hands and with intention, He formed you and all of your talents and gifts and character and emotions and temperaments and strengths and He knitted you together so carefully so that you could live out this life that He already had for you.
“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
David gives us further insight concerning our lives.. He says that God even fashioned your days.. Nothing that you are going through right now is a surprise to Him. This is still something that is hard for me to grasp.
Because at times when you think you should have done something differently…
or you wish you would’ve turned the other way…
or you think that God is punishing you for something that you did way back when…
or you wish you would have chosen the other job or majored in something else…
or you wish you could go back and avoid that relationship…
or you wish you would’ve listened to your parents when they were trying to tell you better…
But no matter what happened… or how you think it could’ve happened differently.. no matter the doubts and regrets that you have… you are in the exact situation and position that God saw for you.
And I believe if we understand this, we will see that in all of these things, God still has a plan.
This word for formed has a few different meanings — overall it means to get, acquire.
(1) It is used as when God, is originating or creating something…
We see this in Genesis 14:19 where Abram is blessed by the Most High, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. This is how it is used right here in Psalm 139:13.. God formed you.
God knew when He created us that we would need our Creator to become who He created us to be… I mean He is the Originator! The Alpha, the Most High.
“Let us make man in our image.” To be an image bearer, it is necessary for us to know the One whose image we bear.
And not just a casual knowing…
Another definition used for the word formed is
(3) of acquiring wisdom, knowledge…
Used in Proverb 1:5 “Let the wise listen and gain instruction, and the discerning acquire wise counsel.” If we keep reading verse 7 tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
So to even begin the process of acquiring wisdom and knowledge… that means it’s not enough just to know God… it’s not enough just to know He created you… It’s not enough to know His rules and to try so hard to abide by His law. It’s not enough to know that He sent His Only Son to die for our sins.. or that He loves you… or that He is the One True God… or that He cares for you or that He is everywhere and He knows everything.
No, our knowledge — rather our hunger for it, needs to be so great for Him because it is birthed out of a fear of Him. Because we don’t want a life where we don’t know Him, we seek every day to acquire more of Him because it’s who He created us to be. He planted a deep desire in us for Him when He created us… A desire for Him who took the time to shape us for His own purposes… for His glory. He formed you for Himself.
And between God forming you and you coming out of your mother’s womb into this sinful world something happened…
And God knew back them, when he fashioned man, that the human race would need to be redeemed. I think this is the definition that really had me thinking… “of God as victoriously redeeming His people.”
God thought of everything.
For this word formed to bear redemption in its meaning shows how much God’s grace is toward us… before we were even born.
If you think that God had to come up with a plan on the fly after He found Adam and Eve hiding amongst the trees when He called out for them in their shame, you need to find new heights for your thoughts about God.
Remember when I told you the word for good… tov, had such a deeper meaning than our own. Chapter 1 finishes with this thought — “God saw everything that He made and indeed it was very good.”
How could God see good in Chapters 1 and 2 when He already knew what would happen in chapter 3?
I think we find our answer for this in Galatians 4, where we find the word formed in the New Testament.
God knew that redemption would come through the seed of the woman.. His very own Son would come into this world and sacrifice His life so that we would receive what God ordained for us… so that we would acquire the ultimate salvation, eternal life in His Son.
The good God saw in Chapters 1 & 2 was “fully known” when He sent His son born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. (4:4-5)
God appointed His Son to be the beginning of our transformation process… where we would begin living to become all that God saw from us before conception. God sees who you are now… but most importantly, He sees who you will be a week from now… a month from now… 10 years from now… when He has called us to eternity.
If we continue in Galatians, it says “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of the His Son into our hearts…”
Why is this important? True transformation requires a change of heart. Remember, it not enough for us to know God.. but to be known by Him. The way He knows us… the way He searches us… the way He finds His way into our lives is through our hearts.
Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
I, the Lord, search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.”
The heart is deceitful… and beyond cure. It’s wicked. Everything about it is evil. None of us can understand this to be true. I think most of us don’t want it to be true. Who wants to think of themselves as evil… as wicked.. as deceitful.. as dishonest.. as untruthful.. as fake.
None of us want to believe it.. but in reality, the human heart is in fact, wicked. We can’t discern for ourselves the things that come from our heart and enter our minds. Especially when trials and tribulations come our way. Especially when our faith is being tested. Especially when we go through things that we think we don’t deserve. Especially when life hits us hard and we are holding on for dear life.
We need God to search and examine us.. we need the Spirit to come in and do his best work…
That’s why David says in the last verses in Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting.”
David knew that at his weak point, concerning his enemies, that without God, his thoughts and motives might not be pure… so he asked that God would lead him onto the right path. Remember earlier he said God knows our thoughts from afar. He knows what we are thinking before we even think it.
And because of this Paul tells us in Romans, that based simply on the mercies of God… on account of all that God has done for us… on all that He has saved us from… on all that He has saved us to… on account of his sentiment and compassion toward us… it is our duty to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. It’s the least that we can do… to live a sacrificial life to the one who gave us life.
He continues, “Do not be conformed to this world…” This is our natural tendency. Because we were born in this world, being joined to this world is the easy and most natural thing for us to do… and that is why this new life that we live after we accepted the gracious gift of Jesus, requires sacrifice.
And we can only obtain it by a renewing of our mind… the Spirit comes into our hearts, takes residence there and consumes our thoughts, transforming our thinking to think like Him so that we can acquire the wisdom and knowledge that God wanted us to have… before we decided that the forbidden tree would do us one better.
This is the tree of life… this is what God wanted for us all along. This is the knowledge that God has for us… this is how He sees us.
No matter what you are going through, friend… remember that it has one purpose. Transformation — God is consistently conforming you to your new life in Christ.
Philippians 3 talks about our waiting eagerly for God to transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
All the things that you are going through will work out for your good… because of the Love God has for you… the Love you have for me & for the purpose that He has over your life.
Consider it all GOOD. No matter what chapter of Life you are in right now. God sees good in your chapter 1 and in your chapter 20.
I want to leave you with this scripture from Ephesians 2:4-10. I hope it blesses you!
love y’all, peace
