Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 (NLT)
1 O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
3 You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
5 You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!
13You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!
Devotional: The God who knows us even when we don’t know him
My next-door neighbour had died. His son called to ask if I would do a Bible reading at the funeral. “What reading would you like?” I asked. “No,” he replied, “you work it out. And you can say a few words to introduce the reading.”
What should I read? This man had been our neighbour for around 20 years. He wasn’t too sure about that “god stuff”, though in the months since his diagnosis of terminal cancer he’d become more open to discussing things of God. But was he a believer? I didn’t know. I wanted to read a passage about God’s presence but one that didn’t assume faith. I also knew that many of those attending the funeral, from his Lawn Bowls club, were not believers. The passage I chose was Psalm 139:1-18 from the New Living Translation.
Psalm 139 reminds us that God knows us intimately (1). This is not God watching us from a distance – this is a God who creates but remains connected with creation (2-4); a God who goes before us yet “has our back” (5); a God to whom each of us is precious – even when other people may not believe that we have value (17-18). This psalm reassures that none of us are “accidents” – God knew each of us from the time we were being formed in the womb (13-16). It’s a psalm we need to come back to when everything is going badly. But it’s a psalm to read in the good times too.
How was the reading of this psalm received at the funeral? A number of people came up afterwards to ask about the reading. I had made several copies of the passage and was able to hand them out to those who asked. One man said, “I definitely want that reading at my funeral.”
Prayer:
Loving God of creation, thank you that you know us intimately. Thank you that you care about each of us – including those who have been rejected by others as “accidents” or imperfect creations. Thank you that in the tough times and the good times you are with us, and that you never forget us, even if we forget you. Amen.
Pam Reed
Registrar and Student Support Tutor