Week 4 Day 1 - Psalms 139 - He REALLY Knows Us!

TIES OF GRACE DAILY DEVOTIONS

Week 4 – He REALLY Knows Us!

Day 1:  Psalms 139:1-6

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.

This summer has been a season of deep reflection for me.  I have been reflective both inside my own heart, as well as things occurring around me and in the world.  It has been one of those seasons where the distractions of schedules and a lot of people around have been lessened and the quietness of the heart is more available for dissection.  It is amazing to me what I can learn when I am readily available to the Lord for “clean-out”.  I rarely choose these seasons and yet they usually end up being the most refreshing, even though it hurts.  And I don’t find it the least bit coincidental that this is the season, both I and my family have been in, as the recent Aurora, CO tragedy took place.  I find it difficult to watch the daily news in Houston where a murder of some sort seems to occur every day.  The evil involved in those daily crimes really eats at me.  But when something of the magnitude occurs, such as Friday night’s horrendous tragedy, it opens me up to this vulnerable place of deep searching.  Though all of these type tragedies haunt me, the two that have impacted me the most, 9-11 and now Aurora, have occurred at a time where God has me in a deep, deep place of raw awareness of my personal need for Him.  I will share more in my blog, http://tiesofgrace.blogspot.com/, in the days ahead.  Tonight, I just want that to preface for you what has led me to this beautiful Psalm this week.  As we process through the events that we are just starting to put faces to the innocent lives lost, people have begun the usual bantering and political arguments on both sides of the fence.  I find no solace in any of it.  I think of those that are suffering so and my remembrance of losing my own child surfaces and I can hardly stomach that anyone could really think of anything more than all of the hurts.  Of course we have opinions. Or course we want to lay blame and accusation. Grief is angering and disturbing and uncontrollable.  But as a Mom that has hurt in that place of just trying to remember to breathe through the pain, I have to say, those things have no value right now.  It is in times like this that we must return to the only thing that can help…. the place where hope is found… the unchanging word of God.  In these scriptures of Psalms 139, in the midst of total chaos in our world, I find comfort, for I realize that I don’t have to figure anything out.  I don’t have to know what that deranged man had in his heart.  I don’t have to try to understand something that will never be understood.  I just have to trust God is who He says He is and He knows.  And even sweeter, He knows me.  He knows not just what my actions are, but from where they came in my inner most thoughts!  And because I am His, He hems me in.  In chaos, rage, and unimaginable sadness in this world, my God loves me (and you and all of us) that much.  He is omniscient and omnipresent.  He knows the steps we take both good and bad.  I will never understand the wonderful gift this really is!  And He knows the evil and He is more than it.  Tonight, I am comforted again through the scariness of the world we live in, by the reminder that God knows.  God knows.  Because of that, I can stop trying to understand and I can just cling to the hope that brings me.  Arguments, fear, anger… they won’t fix what has occurred, nor will they be the guarantee to prevent it again.  But my omniscient, omnipresent Father is my guarantee… and He knows my thoughts and actions…. And motives… even before I do.  So I will lean in and let Him lead.  It truly is the only way.  What gives you the most comfort in these first 6 verses of this Psalms?