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Psalm 139

Take an item out of your wallet or purse that tells us something about you. Show it to us and tell us what it says about you so we can get to know you better.

We get to know other people by listening to them, watching them, and picking up on the symbolic things that reveal who they are. We are social creatures with a need to build meaningful relationships with other people. We also have a need to find out who we are and what our purpose for being is. Often it is in relationship with others that we learn the most about ourselves.

In order for us to find ourselves, we must first see ourselves as persons created by God. We cannot fully understand any creation without knowing something about the creator. We can learn about our Creator by looking at the created, but we also learn about the created by looking at the Creator. So we look at God first, in order to find out who we are.

{1} O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. {2} You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. {3} You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. {4} Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. {5} You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. {6} Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

An attribute ascribed to God is that of omniscience. Do you know what that word means? God is all-knowing. Since He knows everything about everything, He knows everything about us.

• What do these verses say that God knows about us?
• What does the fact God knows you tell you about God? What does it tell you about yourself?
• What does it mean that God has "hemmed" you in? That He has "laid His hand" upon you?

{7} Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? {8} If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. {9} If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, {10} even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. {11} If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," {12} even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

Another attribute ascribed to God is that of omnipresence.

• Do you know what that term means?
• Why would people want to get away from God’s Spirit or flee from His presence?

Verse 8 might well be speaking of emotional extremes—whether we are up or down, God is with us. Verse 9 might well be speaking of changing locations—wherever we go He will be with us.

• What does verse 10 indicate regarding God’s response is to our emotional and locational changes?
• Verses 11 and 12 tell us that even darkness cannot keep God from seeing. Why is this an important fact for us to realize?
• What do these verses tell you about God?
• What do they tell you about yourself?

{13} For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. {14} I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. {15} My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, {16} your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

You are more than a biological blob created by the union of two humans. God created your "inmost being." You are a spiritual person.

• How soon was God involved in your creation?
• What indications are there that you are "fearfully and wonderfully made"?
• What does your creation tell you about God?
• What does the fact God created you tell you about yourself?
• What does it mean that your days were "ordained" and "written in [God’s] book" before you were born?

God created you as a spiritual being. He had you in mind when He created you. He made you something special, with a purpose in mind. To fully know yourself, you need to find yourself within the Creator. To fully find the purpose of your being, you need to understand you are a spiritual being created for relationship with God.

{17} How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! {18} Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. {19} If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! {20} They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. {21} Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? {22} I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. {23} Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. {24} See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God thinks about you! He thinks about you often!

• What does this tell you about God?
• What does this tell you about yourself?
• Do you think people feel comfortable asking God to "search" them and "know [their] hearts"? Why or why not?
• While God is thinking about us, according to verse 23 what kinds of thoughts often occupy us? How is it helpful to know that He knows these thoughts we have?
• With what kinds of "ways" do we need His help?

God created you for fellowship with Him. He already knows you, and He wants you to get to know Him. He wants to help you with your moments of anxiety. He wants to help you with those things that might be offensive to Him and to others. Most of all, He wants to lead you into everlasting life and fellowship with Him. You are important to Him for fellowship now. You are important to Him for fellowship throughout eternity.

1. God knows everything about you.
2. God will always be near you. You can’t run from Him. Neither can anything ever happen that will keep Him from knowing where you are and from being there with you.
3. You are the product of God’s creative power and imagination. He has created you as a spiritual person. You are important to Him.
4. God loves you and wants to have fellowship with you. He wants you to spend eternity with Him.

We have come to understand that God designed a way to express His love toward us and bring us into fellowship with Him. John 3:16 tells us, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

People have difficulty finding themselves and their purpose in life because they try to do it without understanding the One who created them and the purpose for which they were created.

• Are you struggling to find your purpose in life?
• Do you feel as if you are searching for something, but you are not sure what it is?
• Do you suffer from feelings of insignificance?

You can find the answer to your struggles and searches as you come to know God, your Creator.

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