Psalm 139
“You have searched me, Lord,/and you know me” are the beginning lines of Psalm 139 with David explaining how much God knows him, and all his ways, all that he is going to say and do. He continues, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” There is nowhere we can hide from God. He knows everything about us—’the good, the bad and the ugly,’ as the old western title puts it. He already knows everything that we would hide from ourselves and from Him in guilt and shame. He knows our triumphs and our loves. He knows E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-i-N-G, every single thing about us. We cannot escape from his seeing us fully.
But He also loves and forgives us, even when we can’t do the same for ourselves. He knows full well that He created us with free will, so that we can fail, make mistakes, and ignore all that we do wrong, but He also offers us repentance and the chance to turn our lives around at any moment. When we repent, then He is right there with us, for us. When we, then, give our lives over to Him, He will see that we are transformed into the faithful followers that He wants us to be. All it takes is our willingness to follow Him wherever He would lead us.
And that is the key to our redemption—that we know the voice of His Indwelling Spirit and follow it faithfully. And that will eventually lead us to loving and forgiving ourselves as He has always loved and forgiven us. And then, with our full consent and obedience, we will really and truly feel His love and forgiveness; we will really and truly be able to hear what He is saying to us; we would really and truly be able to put each issue that keeps us distanced from Him on His altar so that He could heal and transform us into the people He created us to be.
When we follow His Indwelling Holy Spirit, then we will be using all our gifts and talents, and depending on His help to bring forward His Word in this world. As we drop all our objections and all our distancing from Him and His agenda for us, then we are led into our purpose, into the fulfillment of all that we were created to be. And then, what awaits us is joy, not momentary happiness, but true and lasting joy, as we follow His lead in our lives. Fulfillment, completion of all that we are is what awaits us in His kingdom here on earth. And as we follow Him faithfully, we are led into that sacred community of true followers of God. And there we find our peace, our rest, our true selves. And we find ourselves in a loving, faithful, purposeful, merciful community of true followers of God, nurtured and led by the Holy Spirit.
There is nothing static about our lives in God. There is no resting on our laurels, feeling like we are done with what He asks of us. Every day is dedicated to becoming the most, the truest self that we can be in His care. Every day we are to grow into His word and, in listening wholly to Him, we find out the interpretation that He wants us to hear. As we read the Bible with the Holy Spirit we hear what interpretation God wants us to use right not, and later another more appropriate one. We are constantly growing into the truth of the Gospels that God wants us to impart in our work for Him.
We may have grown into mature people through our own youth and experiences as an adult. We are often so tied to our world, our culture and our family, that we have no idea what the full ramifications of Christ’s teachings and the Bible really are. And that is our job as true followers, true believers in the One God, His Holy Spirit and His Son. We are to be growing constantly in our knowledge and scope of our God and His Son and Spirit. We do belong to churches and worship God in those communities, but our attachment is to God, not to the church itself. We take God’s pronouncements to us as His law, not what the church is saying. We are a part of a church, but not beholden to it. Our only loyalty is to God, to the Trinity.
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Questions to ponder over the week: Am I attached to the Word of God through my church or through the Holy Spirit speaking directly to me? Would I recognize the voice of the Indwelling Spirit of God in my mind? Have I heard how surprising His suggestions are? Have I stilled my mind so that I can hear Him speak to me?
Blessing for the week: May we be the people of God whose lives are led by the Holy Spirit. May we be willing to go where the Spirit directs us to go and to do and say what He asks for us. May our only attachment be to God and to His word.
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