It's said that sunflowers keep circling around during the daylight hours to face the sun. It isn't really so much that as when young plants are growing, they tend to face east to maximize their exposure to the sun's energies. So a whole field of sunflowers, wonderfully faces east — the direction of the sun's rising.
Back on June 25, 2017 I did a reflection of Psalm 139 here — all twenty-four verses. Here I've pulled out only seven lines from the psalm — maybe the best parts we might use for a morning or evening prayer. The whole psalm is light-seeking.
1 O Lord, you search me and you know me.
2 You yourself know my resting and my rising;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You mark when I walk or lie down;
you know all my ways through and through.
13 For it was you who formed my inmost being,
knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I thank you who wonderfully made me;
how wonderful are your works which my soul knows well!
23 O search me, God, and and know my heart.
O test me, and know my thoughts.
24 See that my path is not wicked,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Verse 1: "Search me and know me." We're familiar with the expressions Keep a low profile or Keep your head down. We may have life-bits we'd prefer to keep secret, or have forgotten all about. But God knows us. God searches us out, looking to know us even in the places we keep protectively hidden or are lost to memory. This divine search to know is born of love.
Verse 2: Many Christians think God is only interested in our productive, do-ing, busy time. But here the psalmist tells us God is interested in our rest time, our dream state. God is like a parent who sits watching over a sleeping infant in a crib. It's that tender.
God knows our thoughts from afar, but not afar because God is beyond the beyond, but because our thoughts can be poor, anxious, distracted, silly, despondent or "half-baked." Then softly, God seems to call to us, "Come back, come back."
Verse 3: "You mark when I walk." Medicine Net suggests aiming for 10,000 steps a day, while the average American walks between 3000 and 4000 steps — considered "low activity." We're an unhealthy nation in not a few ways. Maybe the point is a poetic one — God is not an acquaintance or fleeting presence.
"You know all my ways." Our cultural ways? Our cults of personality? Cult is worship. Essentially our worship (putting first) personalities in politics, entertainment, sports, media. There are even personality cults in religion — the prelates or media persons who uphold my religious brand or flag. God doesn't miss a trick.
Verse 13: "You formed my inmost being." Christianity is a spiritual way. "You knit me together." And knitting can be a complex undertaking. It is an invitation to do our inner work. Don't even go there, some people say. It's a kind of threat to leave me untouched. "Let sleeping dogs lie." Innermost place can be the place where old resentments lie, where old trauma-wounds fester. I know a woman who recently broke up with a man when she discovered how untreated and potentially menacing his childhood trauma remains. "Ah, get over it," or "suck it up," doesn't work. God made the inmost being. The psalmist acknowledges this deeply, calling that inner self a wonderful work of God. It deserves respect and attention.
Verse 23: There's that word "search" again. But this time it's "search my heart." Why? So God might root out all the negativity that can take up so much space. Oh, this toxic bitterness and raging fear that's filling the news time and flowing into Christian hearts. Many people don't even see it or hear it in themselves. Or they justify it and think it's godly. God, search my heart and free me!
The psalmist says, "test me." But a teacher doesn't test students to find out what they DON'T know so much as to see what they DO know. I grew up always on the lookout for sin and sin's "near occasions." Kind of a negative take on religious/spiritual living. I want to invite God to test me to see where there's mercy, justice and kindness in my life and to grow me up in these things. Jesus will echo this, reminding us that thoughts originate in our hearts.
Verse 24: "See that my path is not wicked." That could mean something like, "See to it, God, that I stay on a right path." OR it could be a kind of announcement telling God to be sure to see what's already true. Your call.
But then the psalm's last line: "Lead me..." Here's a little video of Velma Willis and her wonderfully faith-filled congregation-friends singing the Gospel Hymn: "Lead me, Guide Me." Check this out! Can you feel it? Oh, blessed Lord Jesus, preserve us from bored prayer and worship. Bishop Anthony Bloom (+2003) says, "Don't pray until you feel something." These folks understand! Do I have any of this in me?
