Wednesday, May 14, 2025

God, investigate my life;
    get all the facts firsthand. I’m an open book to you;
    even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I’m going to say
    before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
    then up ahead and you’re there, too—
    your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful;
I can’t take it all in! (Psalm 139: 1-6, The Message Bible)

                It would be easier to buy a house than it is to rent an apartment these days.

                The rental companies ask for deeply personal  details about our financial trustworthiness. They want proof and documentation about everything.  Credit ratings. Proof of government pensions. Copies of our house sale. Bank statements. ID authentications. We have totally opened and exposed ourselves to their scrutiny.  We have hidden nothing and they know our financial situation as well as we do, maybe better. The good news is that we passed their examination and as of June 1^st, we have a place to live in Whitby.  Whew! (I think our children were fearing that we would be living in their spare rooms and they really don’t have any.)

                ‘You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body.” (Psalm 139: 15)  That profound divine knowledge about us might make some of us squirm just  a tad or more.  I read somewhere recently that every person has about seven deep secrets about themselves which they never share with anyone. But God knows about them. Scripture tells us that God knows the numbers of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7). I expect God doesn’t actually count the hairs on our heads (surely, God has better things to do) but the text means that God knows us intimately, all  our inner thoughts, all our tendencies, our attitudes, our egos, and everything that makes you and me you and me. That includes our sins, warts and failings but, as well, our goodness, our good works, our successes and triumphs. As Adam and Eve found out from the very beginning, one cannot hide from God. “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” (Genesis 3: 10) God will always find us.  He has seen us naked, fully exposed, fully known, fully examined.

                But wait a minute. That is not as bad as it sounds. God has amazing filters in his examination of us.  God is able to sort out the bad from the good. God certainly sees our sins and shortcomings but God is also able to practice his grace upon us and protect us from ourselves with his everlasting Love. “Lord, don’t hold back your tender mercies from me. Let your unfailing love and faithfulness always protect me. For troubles surround me - too many to count! My sins pile up so high; I can’t see my way out. They outnumber the hairs on my head. I have lost all courage.” (Psalm 40: 11 -12, New Living Translation)

                Just as in the parable of the Lost Sheep, God goes to the fullest lengths in order to find us and pull the brambles from our souls. “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19) I have met many people who think that they are worthless and that God could never love them and it was hard to try to convince them otherwise. But the truth is that God gets to know us completely in order to love us just as completely. No one is out of his range of his Vision of Love or left exposed to fear, despair and separation. It is not what is on the outside; it is what is inside. “It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” (Galatians 6: 15) God can take what we are and change what he sees, making us into someone he loves deeply and joyfully.

                “Search me, O God, and know my heart;  test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” (Psalm 139: 23 -24)

 

Dale