THE ‘ALREADY’ GOD
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Opening Prayer
Father in Heaven, give me new insight as I read your Word today. Use it to draw me closer to you and inspire me to offer you greater devotion.
Read PSALM 139
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Footnotes
- Psalm 139:17 Or How amazing are your thoughts concerning me
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Do you feel that you can be ‘real’ with God?
What an intensely personal psalm this is! There’s no getting away from the God who knows us inside and out, better than we can ever know ourselves. Some find this frightening. Others, including myself, find it liberating. I don’t have to pretend. Michael Wilcock calls God the ‘Already’ God. He already knows what we’re about to say (v. 4); he is already wherever we might wish to go (vv. 8–10); I cannot even be who I am without his having already made me ‘me’ (v 13).1
Thinking of the embryo in the womb (v. 13), Wilcock adds, ‘God … on that tiny scale was engaged in a task perhaps more like his original immense work of creation than anything else that he does.’2 No wonder the psalmist cries out that God’s thoughts to him are vast and weighty (v. 17)! I find it truly wonderful that God is the author of every detail of my being, from conception to death, to the very end of time and—onward into eternity.
Verses 19–22 feel like a sudden switch to us—a black cloud covering the sun, which we would wish wasn’t there. It’s not like that to the psalmist, however. It sounds disturbing, but it actually reflects the psalmist’s zeal for God. He is taking sides against those who are utterly opposed to God and his purposes. He is identifying with God’s cause. As we saw in Psalm 137, expressing vehement anger about evil is right, as long as we leave the outcome to God rather than taking things into our own hands. In case we might be tempted to do that, the psalmist humbly recognizes his own propensity to sin and asks for guidance into the ‘way everlasting’ (vv. 23, 24).
Apply
Search online for the James Webb telescope and look at some of the images. Worship the Creator God who knows and loves you so intimately.
Closing prayer
Lord God, you see me inside and out – and knowing everything about me, you love me, provide for me, and guide me. You deserve my thanksgiving and praise you are worthy of far more than I can possibly offer you.
1 Michael Wilcock, The Message of Psalms 73–150 (IVP, 2001), 259 2 ibid., 260
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