Sometimes when we read through our bibles, we have a tendency to just read the words. We truly want to know the Word of God, but unless we get beneath the surface and spend time meditating and reflecting, we can often miss the power of this most unique written message.
Slowly read the psalm below (Psalm 139) - out loud. This translated version reflects the fullness of the language and the probable intent of the writer:
O Lord, you have intimately penetrated, examined, observed, instructed, recognized, punished, and cared for me. You know my dwellings and my risings, my strengths and weaknesses; you distinguish and separate my thoughts to tend and pasture them, to rule and associate with them (even when I am remote, I am precious). You winnow and sift my well-trodden roads; my sleeping and my dreams are familiar to you with all my roads and courses of life in order to cherish and minister to me. For there is not a word, topic, or discourse on my tongue, but lo, O Lord, you observe and recognize it all. You have confined and cramped me behind – backward to my past – and before me and placed your open palm upon me. Such observing, caring, recognizing, and instructing is too remarkable and difficult for me; it is lofty, strong, and inaccessible – I cannot attain it. Where, since I have and am nothing, shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I suddenly bolt from your face? If I mount and ascend up into the sky, you are there. If I make my bed in the world of the dead, behold, you are there, then. If I lift the wings of the dawn and reside in the uttermost parts of the roaring sea, even there shall your open hand guide and transport me, and your powerful open hand seize and possess me.
O Lord, you have intimately penetrated, examined, observed, instructed, recognized, punished, and cared for me. You know my dwellings and my risings, my strengths and weaknesses; you distinguish and separate my thoughts to tend and pasture them, to rule and associate with them (even when I am remote, I am precious). You winnow and sift my well-trodden roads; my sleeping and my dreams are familiar to you with all my roads and courses of life in order to cherish and minister to me. For there is not a word, topic, or discourse on my tongue, but lo, O Lord, you observe and recognize it all. You have confined and cramped me behind – backward to my past – and before me and placed your open palm upon me. Such observing, caring, recognizing, and instructing is too remarkable and difficult for me; it is lofty, strong, and inaccessible – I cannot attain it. Where, since I have and am nothing, shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I suddenly bolt from your face? If I mount and ascend up into the sky, you are there. If I make my bed in the world of the dead, behold, you are there, then. If I lift the wings of the dawn and reside in the uttermost parts of the roaring sea, even there shall your open hand guide and transport me, and your powerful open hand seize and possess me.
If I say, surely the dark, ignorant and sorrowful destruction shall overwhelm and snap me, even a twist away from the light shall be happy illumination about me. Yea, the darkness shall not withhold light from you, but the night is as luminous as the day. The sorrowful dark and the happy illumination are both alike to you. For you have purchased and owned my reins and my mind; you have entwined and fenced me in my mother’s womb. I will lift my hands to you, for I am made in a fearfully reverent and distinguished way. Great and wonderful are your actions, like poetry, and that my soul recognizes right well. My powerful body was not destroyed when I was made in secret, embroidered and fabricated in the depths of the womb – the earth.
Your eyes, like a fountain, did see my strong body, yet unformed, and in your written book all my structures were engraved, which daily were determined and molded into shape, when as yet there was none of them. How costly and valuable are your thoughts and ideas unto me, O God!
Your eyes, like a fountain, did see my strong body, yet unformed, and in your written book all my structures were engraved, which daily were determined and molded into shape, when as yet there was none of them. How costly and valuable are your thoughts and ideas unto me, O God!
How powerfully numerous is the sum of them. If I should tally them, they are more in number than the whirling particles of sand. When I am abruptly startled from sleep, I am continually with you. Surely you will cut off those who are morally wrong, O God. Turn away from me therefore, you men who shed blood unto death; for they speak against you with evil plans and your foes who are watchful for mischief take your character, honor, and position as useless. Do I not hate them, O Lord, that hate you? And am I not cut by those who rise up against you? I hate those with perfect and complete hatred. I count them my enemies.
Penetrate and examine me intimately, O God, and observe, care for, recognize, and instruct my heart and see if there be any idolatrous and wicked ways in me and guide me in the concealed and eternal course of life.
Penetrate and examine me intimately, O God, and observe, care for, recognize, and instruct my heart and see if there be any idolatrous and wicked ways in me and guide me in the concealed and eternal course of life.
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We need to understand that intimacy calls to intimacy; a desire for deep things, cradled in the Spirit, calls to the deep things of God. In return, the deep things of God call to the deep things within us.
Loving Lord, I draw close to you through your Word. I welcome the deepness of your love as it envelops and strengthens me today.
Check out: Psalm 42: 7-8
We need to understand that intimacy calls to intimacy; a desire for deep things, cradled in the Spirit, calls to the deep things of God. In return, the deep things of God call to the deep things within us.
Loving Lord, I draw close to you through your Word. I welcome the deepness of your love as it envelops and strengthens me today.
Check out: Psalm 42: 7-8
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