Focus

Stop and thank God for being present with you today. Ask for God’s guidance as you hear God’s voice through scripture and the writer.

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Read

Psalm 139:1-6 (NRSV)

O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O LORD, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.

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Reflect

These verses from Psalm 139 have always been one of my favorite passages in the Book of Psalms. I have often heard sermons on the topic of how important it is to “know God,” but I have come to believe that the very essence of knowing God is found in recognizing that God knows me. God knows me because God created me. God knows me far better than I could ever even know myself. As I recognize God’s intimate and infinite knowledge of me, I begin to know God, and to become more authentically myself.

To allow myself to be searched out by God, to allow God to examine my thoughts and my intentions, to allow God to influence the thoughts that I think, the words that I say, the deeds that I do, is to allow myself to become someone that can be a reflection of God’s love in this world, someone God can use to change this world in positive and life-affirming ways. To allow myself to be known by God is to allow myself to be known by love, for God is love (1 John 4:7-8).

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Pray

O Lord, search me, know me, and help me to recognize that I am fully known by you, and grant that by doing so I may fully become myself, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Go with God.