The God Who Sees
El Roi = The God Who Sees
Psalm 139:1-10
For the director of music.
A psalm of David.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
Sometimes when studying and/or meditating on scripture just one small phrase will capture your attention and you will perceive many meanings and implications from that one small phrase.
"O LORD, you have searched me"
I have come to understand that God knows me intimately. He made me and in His omniscience He is aware of not just my words and deeds, not just what comes out, but everything. He knows what I see and hear, in fact all of that which comes in. That is all well and good.
But He KNOWS me, my thoughts, dreams, every little corner of my heart and mind, my emotions, what I fear, what I love, what I hate, things about myself I do not understand. He is continually aware of everything about me.
Should this frighten me? I cannot hide anything from Him, not even my motivations that may be entirely secret from others. Every part of me that I do not particularly like, those thoughts I am glad others cannot read and those desires that I do not consider to be appropriate and those harsh judgements towards those I don't really even wish to judge: They are front and center to God.
But I am glad. I rejoice! This sets me utterly free! I cannot hide anything from God, therefore I do not even need to try. There is no deception and I realize how intimately He knows me and therefore that means He knows why I do what I do.....here is where He has mercy on my weaknesses and commends my strengths as I draw my strength from Him. I am glad that I am known completely for with God I am so free to be myself. It helps me to be myself with everyone.
I seek God's grace to show as much of myself to others as I dare. At the same time, I seek to be in agreement with God as much as I am able. I take His love freely and seek to pass it on to others. I learn wisdom at His feet and attempt to live by it. I understand His forgiveness as much as I may and be as forgiving as I can be.
"...and You know me."
Yes, God, You know me. You have always known me. The Psalm goes on to say that You knew me even before I began to be formed in my mother's womb. You planned for me to exist. You knew my birthdate even then, You knew my life, You knew when I would take my last breath and You even knew I would someday come to trust and believe in You. You loved me. As You know and love everyone, even those who don't know or trust or even like You. You love those who hate. You understand them. You continue to hold out Your hand to them like recalcitrant children, patiently waiting for the day that they reach out for it. You know those who will reach and also those who will always turn away. You know, but You continue to love no matter what.
I have read the Bible through many, many times. I have studied the languages, particularly the Koine Greek and have texts and study tools to help break down passages. I have memorized many, many verses and applied the truth therein to my life. I will not claim to be a scholar, but I am certainly a Bible student who knows the subject well. Yet there is so much more to know. No expert am I, just a student seeking to learn and apply what I learn.
But it doesn't matter, for God is able to inspire the reader just as He inspired the writer. The first time I read this Psalm I knew things from it, it spoke to me, it was more than words. God's presence! God understands me. God understands you.
Some of you read this and you know what I mean. Some of you read it and want to know what I mean. Some of you think it is all a bunch of claptrap. I do so wish you could all understand God, to have a relationship with Him, to know His love and to draw from His wisdom and strength. The wisdom and wonder of God overwhelms me, He is so incredible in all ways that my feeble words cannot begin to do Him justice. His own Word tells us that He is able to do far above anything that we can ask or even think. I do attempt to sketch out what someday actually being in His presence in Heaven could be like even as I know it is a futile exercise. God is Spirit. He spoke all existence and time into being. His ways and His thoughts are beyond what I can understand. But He has given to us the living, breathing God in the Flesh, Jesus Christ, to help us understand. He has left us with the Bible. He has given believers His Spirit and also the Spirit seeks to work in the hearts and minds of those who do not believe, seeking to draw them, to assure them.
Psalm 17:15
A prayer of David.
15 And I—in righteousness I will see your face;
when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.
The day will come when I pass away from this earth and stand before my God. I do not fear that day. I am in no hurry to get there, either. I love living. Nor do I have some hare-brained idea of a paradise where virgins feed me grapes and meet my sexual desires. Nor do I picture clouds and harps and angels languishing in golden light.
At the end of this life, God is there. For me, it will be much like waking from a dream and entering into reality. I want to meet Him face-to-face, not having to interface between the material world and the spiritual, as now, but being in the spiritual world with Him and being with Him. I don't want mansions and riches and all of that other stuff sometimes people dream of, I just want God in His fullness. That is my desire.
For the spiritual plane is the reality. Our material existence, it was created with a beginning and it will have an end. It is temporal and while it is all we can see now that does not mean that it is all. No, not all.
For at the end of life, there is God. This excites and moves me. This God has already forgiven me and called me to live with Him in eternity at the end of my short life on earth.
You can say that at the end of life, there will be another life, or, at the end of life, there is nothing. You can say what you want, and many of you will never admit it to me or anyone else but within you still know it. There is no Giant Spaghetti Monster and there is no karmic destiny and there is no end of you. The secret to life is this: We are eternal creatures living for the present in a temporal, material existence. Our earthly containers will die off, and the material world will end. We don't end, simply return to the One who has put us here.
Is it exciting to you, interesting to you, or is it even frightening to you? Do you know it, or do you argue against it? No matter, for here is truth.
At the end of life, God is. The God who knows you. The God Who Sees.
Psalm 139:1-10
For the director of music.
A psalm of David.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
Sometimes when studying and/or meditating on scripture just one small phrase will capture your attention and you will perceive many meanings and implications from that one small phrase.
"O LORD, you have searched me"
I have come to understand that God knows me intimately. He made me and in His omniscience He is aware of not just my words and deeds, not just what comes out, but everything. He knows what I see and hear, in fact all of that which comes in. That is all well and good.
But He KNOWS me, my thoughts, dreams, every little corner of my heart and mind, my emotions, what I fear, what I love, what I hate, things about myself I do not understand. He is continually aware of everything about me.
Should this frighten me? I cannot hide anything from Him, not even my motivations that may be entirely secret from others. Every part of me that I do not particularly like, those thoughts I am glad others cannot read and those desires that I do not consider to be appropriate and those harsh judgements towards those I don't really even wish to judge: They are front and center to God.
But I am glad. I rejoice! This sets me utterly free! I cannot hide anything from God, therefore I do not even need to try. There is no deception and I realize how intimately He knows me and therefore that means He knows why I do what I do.....here is where He has mercy on my weaknesses and commends my strengths as I draw my strength from Him. I am glad that I am known completely for with God I am so free to be myself. It helps me to be myself with everyone.
I seek God's grace to show as much of myself to others as I dare. At the same time, I seek to be in agreement with God as much as I am able. I take His love freely and seek to pass it on to others. I learn wisdom at His feet and attempt to live by it. I understand His forgiveness as much as I may and be as forgiving as I can be.
"...and You know me."
Yes, God, You know me. You have always known me. The Psalm goes on to say that You knew me even before I began to be formed in my mother's womb. You planned for me to exist. You knew my birthdate even then, You knew my life, You knew when I would take my last breath and You even knew I would someday come to trust and believe in You. You loved me. As You know and love everyone, even those who don't know or trust or even like You. You love those who hate. You understand them. You continue to hold out Your hand to them like recalcitrant children, patiently waiting for the day that they reach out for it. You know those who will reach and also those who will always turn away. You know, but You continue to love no matter what.
I have read the Bible through many, many times. I have studied the languages, particularly the Koine Greek and have texts and study tools to help break down passages. I have memorized many, many verses and applied the truth therein to my life. I will not claim to be a scholar, but I am certainly a Bible student who knows the subject well. Yet there is so much more to know. No expert am I, just a student seeking to learn and apply what I learn.
But it doesn't matter, for God is able to inspire the reader just as He inspired the writer. The first time I read this Psalm I knew things from it, it spoke to me, it was more than words. God's presence! God understands me. God understands you.
Some of you read this and you know what I mean. Some of you read it and want to know what I mean. Some of you think it is all a bunch of claptrap. I do so wish you could all understand God, to have a relationship with Him, to know His love and to draw from His wisdom and strength. The wisdom and wonder of God overwhelms me, He is so incredible in all ways that my feeble words cannot begin to do Him justice. His own Word tells us that He is able to do far above anything that we can ask or even think. I do attempt to sketch out what someday actually being in His presence in Heaven could be like even as I know it is a futile exercise. God is Spirit. He spoke all existence and time into being. His ways and His thoughts are beyond what I can understand. But He has given to us the living, breathing God in the Flesh, Jesus Christ, to help us understand. He has left us with the Bible. He has given believers His Spirit and also the Spirit seeks to work in the hearts and minds of those who do not believe, seeking to draw them, to assure them.
Psalm 17:15
A prayer of David.
15 And I—in righteousness I will see your face;
when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.
The day will come when I pass away from this earth and stand before my God. I do not fear that day. I am in no hurry to get there, either. I love living. Nor do I have some hare-brained idea of a paradise where virgins feed me grapes and meet my sexual desires. Nor do I picture clouds and harps and angels languishing in golden light.
At the end of this life, God is there. For me, it will be much like waking from a dream and entering into reality. I want to meet Him face-to-face, not having to interface between the material world and the spiritual, as now, but being in the spiritual world with Him and being with Him. I don't want mansions and riches and all of that other stuff sometimes people dream of, I just want God in His fullness. That is my desire.
For the spiritual plane is the reality. Our material existence, it was created with a beginning and it will have an end. It is temporal and while it is all we can see now that does not mean that it is all. No, not all.
For at the end of life, there is God. This excites and moves me. This God has already forgiven me and called me to live with Him in eternity at the end of my short life on earth.
You can say that at the end of life, there will be another life, or, at the end of life, there is nothing. You can say what you want, and many of you will never admit it to me or anyone else but within you still know it. There is no Giant Spaghetti Monster and there is no karmic destiny and there is no end of you. The secret to life is this: We are eternal creatures living for the present in a temporal, material existence. Our earthly containers will die off, and the material world will end. We don't end, simply return to the One who has put us here.
Is it exciting to you, interesting to you, or is it even frightening to you? Do you know it, or do you argue against it? No matter, for here is truth.
At the end of life, God is. The God who knows you. The God Who Sees.