Blogging the Psalms: Rejoicing in Foreknowledge

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. . . .

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. . . .

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-16, 23-24

I love Psalm 139. As David moves through the psalm, we see him confronted with a keen awareness of God’s sovereignty—that God fully knows David. He knows every deed.

And he knows every thought.

“Even before a word is on my tongue . . . you know it altogether,” he writes. Every thought. Every word. Every action.

Every ugly sin that David would try to hide from anyone else, God knows it.

How does he react? Guilt? Shame?

Awe.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

He’s completely awe-struck. God’s knowledge of every detail of who he is is totally incomprehensible to him. But it leads him to praise God for His intimate knowledge.

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . . in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

This last part, “in your book were written [all] the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them,” this caught my attention.

David praises God specifically for pre-determining all the days of His life.

He sees predestination and God’s foreknowledge as something to be embraced—and the inspiration for worship.

Likewise, the truth that God knows all and has ordained all that will ever happen in my life—whether I find it comfortable or not—is, or should be, something for me to celebrate.

Yet, it’s so much easier for me to whine. To grumble about what’s going on and to fight against what God might be doing. To try to take control of situations that belong to God alone.

It’s just silly.

It doesn’t grow me in holiness. In fact, it’s an act of rebellion.

It’s much healthier to embrace God’s sovereignty, just as David did.

To worship Him because He has ordained all things.