# 3 - I am wonderfully made: Psalm 139; Reflection by Kurt Nelson

Reflection on Psalm 139

This Psalm of David may be unique in all the Psalms for it directly requests God who knows all things, sees all things and made all things to search out the Psalmist to see if he is worthy of the Lord. It takes a great deal of courage for one who understands the "person" of God to then ask for a personal evaluation! This is a prayer that all of us should periodically pray. We should all continually search and strive to be the Christian that the Lord wants us to be.

I am personally moved by the language of this Psalm. It is a very pious and devout meditation concerning God's omniscience. David establishes the power of God in the first six verses. He then very adeptly establishes that there is no place for him to hide from God's power for God himself while being all powerful even put David together and David knows this. At this point it almost seems that David is trying to get on the Lord's good side in verses 13-18. He then closes with his petition which is so wonderfully stated: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts." All of us desire to be kept and led in this way, that we may not miss anything, turn away from anything or tire of anything. We want to be God's own and to do his will.

Psalm 139

O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
²You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
³You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
⁵You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
⁷Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,"
¹²even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
¹³For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
¹⁴I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸I try to count them — they are more than the sand;
I come to the end — I am still with you.
¹⁹O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me —
²⁰those who speak of you maliciously,
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
²¹Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²²I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
²³Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
²⁴See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.