PRIORITIES

It's late August, and we're going through our annual late-summer “heat waves” with 100-degree temperatures. I'm grateful for today's “air conditioners,” recalling my younger years in stuffy, low-budget rental apartments without “A/C.” Instead, a noisy box fan helped move air so I didn't sizzle like bacon on a hot pan.

Our current blistering-hot days find me thinking of a psalm in which a deer's thirst becomes a spiritual analogy. You probably know the one, which starts:
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Ps.42:1-2)

This bold, young deer visited the back yard
in late winter, obviously hungry (those
are rose bushes behind him--ouch!)

If you can remember back to the 1970s to the emergence of contemporary Bible choruses (many out of the Southern California “Maranatha!” ministries), you're probably humming that chorus. It's been running through my mind, too, as I go about my tasks. I recall how this psalm reflected a challenging time in David's life. His comfort and prestige were stripped away, and he was enduring the hard, hot life of hiding in the desert from insane, murder-intending King Saul. Food and water were precious and rare. Yet David found his hope and practical supply in God: The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. (Psalm 28:7)

I suspect that Psalm 42, with its downcast tone (like verse 3: “My tears have been my food day and night”) isn't apt to inspire upbeat “life verses.” The ticking away of days and years has its hard spots, and it's easy to think sadly about past “Glory Years.” Maybe we had more friends. Respect from others. A secure job we enjoyed. Health. A place to live which brought us comfort and happiness. A satisfying purpose for living. Or maybe a measure of fame.

Certainly “fame” was anticipated for Scotsman Eric Liddell, whose amazing athletic achievements were portrayed in the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire.” He was predicted to win the 100-meter race in the 1924 Olympics. But Liddell, a devout Christian who aspired to be a missionary, withdrew when he learned the race's heats would be held on a Sunday. Instead, he switched to the more grueling 400-meter race during the week.

In the movie script, Liddell was handed a note just before the race. Reportedly from his team's masseur, it read: “In the old book it says, he that honors me I will honor. Wishing you the best success always. 1 Samuel 2:30.” Despite the extra strain for him to attempt a race four times his “trained” length, Liddell won with an Olympic record of 47.8 seconds. It would stand until the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

From sports fame he moved on to mission work in China, dying there of an undiagnosed brain tumor in his 43^rd year. But his dedication to Christ's cause made a difference. Of course, he was asked “post-Olympics” if he regretted leaving behind his Olympic fame for mission service. He replied: “It's natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes, but I'm glad I'm at the work I'm engaged in now. A fellow's life counts for far more at this than the other.”

Powerful words about priorities! The Lord was Liddell's strength and shield. And even decades after his death, Liddell's passion for Christ still inspires.
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Enjoy these links connected to Liddell's story. This one presents the “deer” song: Bing Videos
Then, here is the movie reenactment of Liddell's Olympic race (skip the preceding ads): Bing Videos

JUST LISTENING

 

I stepped out the front door that early morning, looked down the street, and just listened. The birds of early spring were whistling, chortling, cawing, tweeting, and more..... We get so used to our "natural surroundings" that I suspect we forget that they, too, can praise their Creator.

Among Biblical reminders:

*Meadows (“clothed with flocks of sheep”) and valleys (“carpeted with grain”) “all shout and sing for joy!” (Psalm 65:13 NLT)

*As we look “up”: “The heavens declare the glory of God' the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2)

*Watching the heaving waves, hearing the thunder of the surf and the whispering retreating waves: “The seas have lifted up their voice” (Psalm 93:3)

*The whole landscape: “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy” (Psalm 96:11-12).

As a still-single young adult (age 31), six months apart I lost my parents to cancer and a heart attack. In that difficult “next year” of grief plus re-homing their belongings and selling their home, I had to make many trips across one of the passes of majestic Mount Rainier. Near the summit, there was a turnoff that I gladly took for a driver's break. As I got out of the car, there rearing above me, in glistening splendor, was the state's trademark mountain. As I paused, I listened to my heart in awe of this sight reminding me of the power and strength of its Creator.

I had memorized much of Psalm 139, and several verses revisited as I considered the mountain grandeur:

Verse 5: God knew the past and the future: “You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

Verses 8-10: Wherever I go—the heights, the depths, beyond the dawn, on the far side of the sea, “even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

Washington's tallest mountain (a “sleeping volcano”) was worshiped by Native Americans, who called it “Tahoma.” (Strangely, it was later named "Rainier" by a British naval officer who surveyed Washington's coast and decided to give the mountain his friend's name. The friend never saw it in person!) I can understand their awe for a magnificent structure of creation. It helped me “lift mine eyes unto the hills” (Psalm 121), past my earth-bound worries and concerns, to my Creator.

I suspect too often we slam off the alarm, rush through the morning hygiene tasks, grab a breakfast and run to start our days. But now, in early mornings, the earth beckons me to pause and listen to the distinct voices the Creator gave the different bird species.

Maybe it's just me, but the gentle sunrise stillness especially draws me to worship. The cool, the dew, the chirps and chortles of winged life--just listening prompts my heart to praise the Creator.

WORM THEOLOGY

 A friend had shared fresh produce from his garden, and I could hardly wait to taste that ear of corn, picked within the day. I didn't expect a side of protein: a corn borer caterpillar nibbling its way down one of the succulent yellow rows. I'd experienced “wildlife” in corn before. I learned to just cut out the “offending” portion. Still, it reminded me that anything is vulnerable to attack. And in everyday life in our fallen world, the “bad stuff” we can't see right away is fully visible to God.

Maybe that's why I find special comfort in the “omni” attributes of God: His omnipresence (He's everywhere), omniscience (all-knowing), and omnipotence (all-powerful). When I feel bewildered or defeated by what is gnawing into my life, none of it is a surprise to God.

I think that's why Psalm 139 is so meaningful to me. Sometimes I'm tempted to feel like just another anonymous person on this planet. But this passage reminds me that I am significant. God created me for a special purpose and I am known to God. He knows what's rattling around my brain--my thoughts are fully known to Him (v. 2). He knows my current and upcoming circumstances. Distance doesn't matter (vv. 7-10). Darkness doesn't hide him (vv. 11-12). He knew me from the time I was a few dividing cells inside my mother's womb (v. 13). He watches sadly if I turn away from Him and do my own thing.

If I make negative "all-about-me choices"—like caterpillar munching down a delectable row of corn kernels—well, He sees that negative path. He also knows how to point the purging knife of the Holy Spirit at the right spot and take out the pestilence. He gladly answers the psalm's concluding prayer:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (vv. 23-24)

SEARCHED (Psalm 139)

Distributed by a right-to-life group, this represents a baby at about 11 to 12

weeks in the womb. He already squints, swallows and makes a fist. He has

fingerprints and can kick. He sucks his thumb. He weighs about one ounce

and all body systems are working. "Knit by God" in a mother's womb!

 (Psalm 139:13-16)

  

(Part of an ongoing series of psalms to study when "feeling down," from pastor-counselor David Seamand's book, Healing for Damaged Emotions.)

A 24-year-old Irishman, J. Edwin Orr, had gone to the north island of New Zealand in 1936 to preach at evangelistic services. Revival broke out. People publicly confessed their sins.  Believers were reconciled. So many wanted to come that midnight services were added. As Orr prepared to leave the island, four Maori girls sang him a native song of farewell. He couldn’t forget the tune nor what he’d experienced in his ministry there. As he stood in a New Zealand post office, he jotted on the back of an envelope verses to a hymn inspired by the words of Psalm 139. A brilliant man, Orr would go on to earn several doctorates and write many well-known books on revival. But this simple hymn with its haunting melody, inspired by Psalm 139, has left its mark on worship. It begins:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray.
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.

DIVINE DIMENSIONS
Psalm 139 has no match in its comforting assurance that God is everywhere-knowing (“omniscient”), everywhere-present (“omnipresent”), and everywhere-powerful (“omnipotent”). It’s the psalm I go to when I need assurance that nothing, absolutely nothing, escapes God.

ALL KNOWING: God knows us. Nothing is hidden. What we do, what we say, what we think, where we go—He’s on top of it all. He’s behind and before the events of our lies. Scary. Yet comforting. His perfect knowledge and awareness defies comprehension. But, He is God.
ALL PRESENT: God is with us, everywhere, all the time. Verse 7 asks, Where can we go from His Spirit or presence? Nowhere. No place in heaven, earth, in dark or light. “Darkness is as light to you,” David said (v. 12).
ALL POWERFUL:We live in scary times of complex scientific efforts toward health and reproduction. Yet the mystery of sperm and ovum becoming a complete human being remains God’s work. “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” David described each of us being “knitted” in our mother’s womb. Those first kicks, the moving “bump,” the crush of labor, the excitement of new life squawking as air expands lungs for the first time. It’s God-work, and always will be.  
GOD-MATH
I’m glad God isn’t afraid of superlatives:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. (vv. 17-18)

When you think about it, “infinity”—symbolized by something like the number “8” on its side—cannot be thought about. It is too huge, too unfathomable, too "out-there.” Infinity needs “God” in its definition. Try counting to “infinity” to get to sleep! Maybe David did, thus his remark, “When I awake, I am still with you.”

GOD-DEFENSE 
From praise to perturbed: David expresses a little righteous anger over the hateful actions of non-believers. Are we any different? Does not a lot of hurt originate with those who deny or distort a holy God? Turn back to Psalm 11:4-6 for a description of the destination of those who oppose God-followers.

EXPLORATORY SURGERY
 A well-known minister of our times remarked that a lot of contemporary worship omits an important element of approaching God: confession of sins. This is where the ending verses fit in:Search me. O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (vv. 23-24)

David’s willing to undergo “exploratory spiritual surgery” to make sure all is right between him and God. Can we expect any less as we stand before a God who is all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful?  

Psalm 139 is not for the arrogant believer. It’s not a bandage for times we feel beat up. It’s a reminder that we bow at the feet of a holy and all-present God who knows our weaknesses and yet has loved us lavishly since the egg and sperm joined to become “us.” 

For those reasons, yes, this is a psalm to study, dwell in, pray over in “times of feeling down.”  As Orr’s hymn declared, God can set us free.

Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 139: Known

Part of a continuing series on selected psalms.
When my son and his wife showed me the ultrasound image of my first grandchild, the words of Psalm 139 immediately came to mind:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (vv. 13-14)
That would probably be my choice for a “key verse” for this exquisitely-crafted psalm. Through remarkable descriptions of the God who is infinite and intimate, it expresses how all of creation, in existence and purpose, is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” English has words for these attributes of God, all starting with the prefix “omni,” from the Latin for “all”: omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. Those words suggest an outline for the psalm’s first three sections, with the final one inviting us to self-examination. But the simplicity of its structure defies the jewels that could be mined from this psalm that expresses God’s extravagant Being and love for us.
 

OMNISCIENCE (VV. 1-6)

The first two words already provide a stopping point: “O LORD.” This term of address not only establishes it as a prayer, but it emphasizes God’s high and revered essence through use of His holiest name, “YHWH,” which English translations indicate through “LORD” in small capital letters. It’s the ancient “name” of God that no pious Jew would dare write or speak out of profound reverence. David reached deeply into his native tongue to find words expressing God’s all-knowing character—ones we translate in English as search, know, perceive, discern, and are familiar with. God’s perfect knowledge includes a person’s location and subconscious life (thoughts, plans, habits, and soon-to-be-spoken words)—and all this “completely” (v. 4).

To picture God’s constant presence, David used a military expression, “you hem me in—behind and before” (v. 5). Unlike an enemy, which would hem in a city to destroy it, God surrounds us, both past and present, for our good. He is personal in His guidance: “you lay your hand upon me” (v. 5b). This expression brought me great comfort and confidence at change points in my life. When I felt besieged by circumstances and unsure of the future, being confident of God “behind” and “ahead” with His hand upon me, helped me go forward in faith.

God’s “omniscience” is so immense that we barely begin to understand it. No wonder David added: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (v. 6). We don’t know how He does it, but He does it. In response, we might say with the apostle Paul, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).

OMNIPRESENCE (VV. 7-12)

I babysit my year-old grandson while his parents work, and if I’m not within his sight, he gets worried. When he wakes up from napping in his crib, he cries for that “people” connection he depends on for just about everything. Similarly, God’s constant presence should comfort us, as Paul observed in the well-known “God works for good” teaching of Romans 8. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul asks as a rhetorical question, listing negatives like hardships, persecution, personal deprivations, even death by an enemy. “No,” Paul adds, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through whom who loved us” (Romans 8:35, 37).

As David looks at God’s “omnipresence” or ability to be everywhere, he also touches on the sinful tendency to want to hide from God. “Where can I go from your Spirit?” he asks, “Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7). The answer is nowhere. God is in heaven and in the place of the dead (“sheol”). If we could travel at the speed of light (like the “wings of the dawn”), we couldn’t get away from Him. We can’t hide from Him in some dark place, for even the absence of light is no problem for Him. God surpasses the abilities of forensic law workers, who attempt to solve crimes. He sees crime when it happens. He also sees into the dark hearts of those who commit offenses. Darkness is as light to Him (v. 12).

OMNIPOTENCE (VV. 13-18)

David could not have chosen a better example of God’s all-powerful hand than the miracle of creating a human life from one cell merging the mother’s and father’s genetic codes. He couldn’t know about coils of DNA when he chose the wonderfully appropriate Hebrew word sarak (“to entwine”) that more modern English translators render “knit”: “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Even when hidden inside a mother’s womb (now seen in shadows via ultrasound), our growing “beings” were never hidden from God. God also “knew” the life-path for each of us “before one of them came to be” (v. 16). God has a purpose for each human being, as many other Bible verses attest. He described Jews who would return from Babylonian exile as those “whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (Isaiah 43:7). Each of us has a divinely-crafted role: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). When we go off and do our own thing apart from God, then come back, He will help us change to do “his good, pleasing, and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

Against all these reminders of God’s presence and power, it’s easy to feel insignificant, especially when life’s problems dim our perception of who He is. That’s why the concluding verses of this section are so comforting. They’re a wonderful prayer for those “down days” when God seems distant: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would out number the grains of sand. When I awake [even when I waken to dread the day ahead] I am still with you [which gives me hope for the day ahead!]” (verses 17-18, my comments in brackets).

RESPONSE (VV. 19-24)

The concluding section almost seems out of place after the majority of the psalm exalts God’s great knowledge, presence, and power. David expresses righteous indignation about his enemies when he asks God to slay the wicked. This seems strange unless we remember that God is holy, and all face the choice of accepting Him in all His holiness, or choosing to sin and reject Him. Sinners are objects of both God’s love and God’s wrath: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). David is also separating himself from the evil around him (vv. 21-22) as he seeks to love and serve only God.

Not only does David abhor the evil of his nation and culture, he wants all of it purged from himself:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (vv. 23-24)
Of course, God doesn’t need to “search” because He knows all about David (and us), anyway. But David is expressing his desire to be shown his sin.  As someone once put it, “Roof off to God.” Paul explained it to one of the New Testament churches, as taking captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians. 10:5).

A key word for this psalm is “known.” God is so great—so all-knowing, so “everywhere,” and so powerful--that we cannot “know” all that He is. Yet He knows everything about us, from the very first cells that became “us,” custom-designed for His purposes. And that brings us back to David’s awe expressed in verse 6: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.”

Next: Psalm 145