Read each verse from your Bible and compare your thoughts mine. (This was the Arthur Home Group Study tonight.)
David begins by confessing the obvious: God knows him.
This knowledge is not superficial – not just basic data, like birth date, favourite food, place in the family etc.
God has searched him to know him. God has probed. Searching means intent looking – it means lifting up stones to look under them – it means sweeping under beds – it means getting close up.
God looks intently into your life. Nothing is missed. You are deeply known by God.
Verse 2
God knows when you opt out or give up or take time out (you know when I sit down).
He knows when you take action, good or bad – when you attempt to make things happen (you know when I rise up).
He sees you when you are passive or active. He sees you night and day – asleep or awake. He discerns (makes out/recognizes) our thoughts when they far off - still not even properly formed. He sees our thoughts when they are still forming, like far away whispy clouds on the horizon.
Verse 3
God knows our habits – the familiar paths we tread – our usual responses to various circumstances. He knows where to find us at any time. We are totally predictable to him.
Verse 4
Even before the idea I have in my head has moved to the speech centre of my brain and activated my vocal chords and my tongue – even while that idea is still an electrical impulse in my brain – God knows the full extent of it. He knows what triggered the idea, where it comes from, why I think it and what I want to achieve by speaking it out – all this before I even think the idea completely into existence.
Verse 5
God brought you to the point where you are poised at this moment in time and space. He was working in everything behind you to bring you to this place. He is in front of you. Nothing you plan to do or plan to avoid can happen without his involvement and permission. You are hemmed in by God. His hand is upon you.
Verse 6
Isn’t that amazing information – wonderful – mind-expanding - humbling? Worship!
Verse 7
What if you don’t like this close scrutiny – where will you go? Do you think that there is anywhere you can run to? Are you tempted to have a rest from God’s close attention?
Verse 8
Will you try for heaven? Are you holding out hope that you can find fun, enjoyment and fulfilment in a place? There is no beauty, heavenly experience or genuine thrill apart from God. He has to be there for it to be anything more than ashes and disappointment!
Will you try death – lying in the grave to get peace and quiet? Suicide is no escape from God. You will meet him there also – each person gets to die once and after death the judgement.
Verse 9,10
Will you try travel as your means of getting away from God’s close scrutiny? Will you fly to another country to get away from your circumstances, your church, your family? You can’t outdistance God. Even as you travel, God’s hand is still upon you directing how far you will go and how safe you will be.
Verse 11,12
Will you try hiding in the darkness? Whether the natural darkness of night or the darkness of an immoral lifestyle – darkness is no place to shake God off your tail. His insight penetrates through the darkness to find you and see you as if you were caught in the nightlight of the Police helicopter.
Verse 13
The reason God knows you so closely and intimately is that he formed you. When you were infused with life and woven into a bundle of DNA and your tiny brain and organs were growing towards personhood – that was God shaping you.
Verse 14
Praise is the only proper response. Deep down we know only too well that we are ourselves the evidence of God’s unsearchable wisdom.
Verse 15,16
We didn’t look much when we were still a foetus, just a bundle of flesh – but even then God had decreed the length of our days in the world – even before we saw the light of our first day.
Verse 17,18
Isn’t God’s thoughtfulness about you and towards you, precious? Don’t you highly value – more than the opinion of friends or the views about you of your own family – the thoughts that God has about you? The thought he put into planning you and the thoughts he has toward you today to provide you with the best opportunity of responding to him and knowing him. God’s thoughts towards his people are limitless – the scope and detail of his purposes is mind-boggling. We go to sleep and for a few hours are unaware of God’s sleepless activity towards us and for us. But when we wake up – we are still right there, under God’s focus – he hasn’t wandered off, distracted by more interesting things, while we were asleep.
Verse 19-22
God’s care and attention leads us to feel angry when we consider those who work with the evil one to destroy and undermine everything that God is doing. We long for the day when God will finish with evil and evil men. Any enemy of God is our enemy too. In the light of God’s constancy and nurturing – the malice of violent men sickens us.
Verse 23
However, at the very moment we are seething about others’ wickedness, it dawns on us – are we in the clear?
What about me? What if there are traits of evil still in me? What if I am not pure and I am harbouring the same malicious attitude or tendancy in my heart as those I despise? O God search me! Know my heart – I don’t know my own heart the way I should. Test me – find ways to bring out my thoughts – bring to the surface my true self. See if there is anything in me that offends you. Get me on track. Get me into the way that has no end – deliver me from my dead end thinking and put in the way of Christ.
David began stating the well-known truth that God searches and knows us. He ends his Psalm by pleading with God to search him, know him and keep him in the clear.
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