Digging Your Tunnel
“For Christmas one year we bought our children what was called, “AntCity.” This consisted of clear plastic plates on either side, filled with sand and ants. From our vantage point outside and above, we could see what these busy little creatures were doing underground. We watched as they tunneled their way underground, leaving a maze of trails. In a similar fashion, God scrutinizes our paths. From where we are, tunneling along, all we see is the sand immediately ahead, behind and beside us. But from His vantage point, He can see exactly where we’ve been and precisely where we’re going…. ‘He is intimately acquainted with all my ways.’ [Psalm 139:3]” (Chuck Swindoll, “The Mystery of God’s Will.”)
Around New Years is generally the time when we stop to take a look at the paths and tunnels we have carved during the previous years and look forward to the paths and tunnels of the next. New Year’s resolutions, which many people make this time of year, are a way that we say to ourselves, “After a personal examination of my life, and the tunnels I have been digging, the paths that I have been walking, I have seen that my path is not headed where I want to go and I need to make some adjustments. I have a habit, or a vice, or something that is causing me (or someone else) grief, and it needs to change.” Some people use the Biblical phrase saying they are going to get back on “the straight and narrow path”.
Psalm 139 is all about the God who knows His people and His Creation, and who sets the “straight and narrow path” before them. And then He gives them the freedom of choice to follow that path or not. For some, and we’ll explore this as we go along, this Psalm is one of great encouragement and a springboard from which they are sent into worship of God. For others, this is a terrifying psalm. It scares and disturbs some people. It creates a sense of foreboding paranoia in which they find no comfort, but feel found out, spied on and controlled by a malevolent force which they reject. Hopefully you will understand more as we move on.
This psalm is divided into six different sections, and is something of a path itself. Each section has a different emphasis and direction of thought, but each holds together to support and expand on the rest of the whole, culminating in the final passage at the end of the journey. So I invite you to open up to Psalm 139 and let’s take this road step by step together over the next 6 days.
God Only Knows
I’ve called the first part, verses 1 to 6, “God only knows”. “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 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 1 to 6 begin first and foremost with a declaration of truth. There is nothing in this first part that speaks to motive on God’s part at all. Words like, “know, search, perceive, discern, familiar with, know completely, hem me in”, and even verse six where the knowledge is called, “too wonderful” and “unattainable”, only describe the depth of the knowledge God has about the individual himself, not the reason for having it, or the motive behind it, or what God does with it. The only concept at the beginning of this psalm is how absolutely intimate and ultimate God’s knowledge of the individuals is.
God, throughout scripture, is said to have perfect and complete knowledge of everything – theologians call it omniscience. He does not see or perceive merely on the physical level like humans do. Sure, we have a sense of intuition that goes a little beyond the mere physical, but anyone who has been lied to knows how limited our perception is.
But God’s knowledge is absolute. The Hebrew word for “KNOW” used in this section is a common word that is found in the Bible about 1000 times, it’s the Hebrew word YADA. But, it has the unique feature in that when it is used of God, it defines a special knowledge that we could call complete, divine discernment. YADA and is the word that is used for many different types of “knowledge” in many different contexts. It’s used for merely perceiving something, and also for having an intimate knowledge of something or someone. It is used of someone who knows something well enough to take care of it, or of someone who examines something closely, like scientific research. It is used when someone understands something or even experiences something.
When used of God, YADA encompasses all of these. God knows us intimately, examines us and knows us scientifically, He knows us experientially. He knows us completely.
Take a look at verse 2. He knows when we sit down, or rise up. He knows our thoughts, our deeds, our spirits and our motives. He knows the path we are living on and where we will die (that’s what “lying down” means).
Now, here’s my point for this section: the depth of this knowledge, as I said before, will give you one of two reactions. It will either give you comfort, or make you paranoid.
Consider for a moment the concept the psalmist uses when he says he is “hemmed in” in verse 5. For some people, this gives them assurance. They are safe, taken care of, given boundaries and protected –like the guardrail keeping you from falling into the Grand Canyon. Others will read this exact phrase and feel discomfort. They are trapped, bound, tied up, controlled and have had their freedom taken away. It’s like almost like a psychological test. So there’s questions 1:
How do you feel when this scripture says that God has you “hemmed in”?
