Sonship - Psalm 139

 
Catherine McIntire - Cello
Catherine's blog - www.pureweakness.com
Catherine grew up in Rochester, MN and moved to IHOP in July 2005 where she completed the Onething Internship. Her passion is bringing holy encounter and healing to wounded hearts through music.

 

Psalm 139 and I go way back. When I was about 6, my sister and I had matching t-shirts from the Donut Man, that said “fearfully and wonderfully made”. I had no idea what “fearfully” meant. But I knew that that verse meant babies were special, even before they were born.

In the past few years, I’ve realized that it doesn’t stop there! This chapter of scripture shows us a God who cares deeply about our moment-by-moment existence, from the very beginning to beyond the end of our time in our mortal bodies. In the process it also gives us a compelling model of meditation and intercession.  

I love Psalm 139 because it paints a picture of a God who knows, a God who sees and a God who is intentional. One of the great longings of the human heart is to know and be known, and this psalm describes a God who meets that longing in a profound way.

He knows our actions (vs. 1), our thoughts (vs. 2) and our words (vs. 4), even before we speak them! There is nothing we can do that He is not aware of. What other god can claim to have seen our unformed substance (vs. 16)? What other god would care?

What I really want to explore are the places in this Psalm that have always sort of bugged me. You know, those little passages that don’t quite make sense? As I have stared at them, and looked up commentary on them, I’ve begun to think that the message of the Psalm is truly incomplete without them.

The end of verse 18, “When I awake, I am still with you” puzzled me for years. For me, the “aha!” explanation is understanding “awake” to be the resurrection. Not only is He with us in our very first moments of existence, but He never leaves us, even in death!  David, the author of this psalm, is emphasizing that there will never be a point in time that God will leave us, even if we were to take the time to count all His thoughts towards us (necessarily taking us past our lifetime and into eternity)!

Reading an illustrated children’s book of Psalm 139, I couldn’t help but laugh as I realized verses 19-22 were left out completely. And who am I to argue?“Oh that you would slay the wicked” could make for some rather violent illustrations! At first glance those verses seem odd and perhaps even out of place with the rest of the psalm. How did we get from a feel-good meditation on God’s complete knowledge of us, to a declaration of hatred for those who hate God?

And yet, it’s really not out of place at all. It’s a progression, from revelation of God’s intentions for our lives, into intercession for the fulfillment of God’s purposes. As David ponders God’s affection, he is emboldened. In light of God’s design and purpose for his life, and the Lord’s overwhelming care for David’s heart, David cries out for the release of justice. As David meditates on the revelation that God has made him, he is provoked to contend for his own physical protection and for righteousness in the earth. It’s a revelation of sonship.

In the same way, as we meditate on this psalm, a cry for justice should rise up in each one of us. God has called each one of us “fearfully and wonderfully made”! What confidence this should invoke in us to approach His throne daily and intercede for justice to fill the earth, for the ending of human trafficking and abortion. It is not right that the ones our God has planned for with such delight should be so abused and even killed. We are His children and the more we realize that, the stronger our cry for justice becomes.

David ends his psalm with a prayer for purity of heart. Even as he asks for justice, he longs for his cry to come from a place of integrity. He is saying, “do what You need to do in my heart so that I might be worthy to walk in the everlasting way, in the days You wrote for me before I was born”.

It turns out my understanding of Psalm 139 as a little girl was true. It is a Psalm about justice. And a great model for intercession too, as it progresses from meditation on God’s heart and desire towards us, to a petition for His desires to be released in the earth, to a request for humility and purity.

© 2010 Catherine McIntire