Mothers' Day Thoughts on Psalm 139

Mothers’ Day is a day of love. A mother’s love for her children. A son’s or daughter’s love for their mother. A husband’s appreciation for his wife. A family’s celebration of their connectedness and mutual care. My prayer would be that you are able to express your appreciation and love for your mother today, even if they are far away, or even if they have departed this earth.

Of course these are ideals that are not always the reality. In families where there is tension, and where there has been abuse, such days as Mothers’ Day, can be very problematical. In such situations, my prayer would be that the followers of Jesus could be the ones to embark on a journey toward reconciliation – “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”.

Celebrating a day of love reminds us of another love within this universe. The love of God toward us. Also, the love we can have for God. Because God is Divine, the perfect creator, God’s love for us is an undeniable reality. It can’t be suppressed, it can’t be shut off – it’s always been there, it always will be there! On the other hand, because we are human, and because we have fallen into rebellion through our freewill to make our own choices, we don’t necessarily love God to our full capacity.

Some people don’t love God even the slightest amount – for a variety of reasons they have closed themselves off to God. Some will love God at some times, and not at others, depending I suspect, on how successfully they are traveling. Such a person hasn’t really signed on to a true relationship journey with God. Others have committed their lives to Jesus, yet find the road of loving God a little rocky, and their lives demonstrate a degree of instability and inconsistency.

Some people can however clearly have the marks of a two-way loving relationship with God reflected in their faces, and demonstrate this in their neighbourliness and compassion. 16th Century Mystic, Teresa of Avila, wrote that one’s love for God can only be truly proven in one way … through our love of neighbour.

So my prayer would be that we can love God more, because God can’t love us any more than He already does! How can we learn to love God more? I think we learn to love our mother more, often by the example of love and care she gives to us. In the same way, we can learn to love God more by coming to even greater levels of appreciation for how much God loves and cares for us. Even if our earthly mother, who is also only human, has let us down sometime, even a just a glimpse of motherly concern can inform our knowledge of God’s perfect and complete and eternal love for us.

Psalm 139 offers an expression of such love – possibly there has never been written a better understanding of God’s intimate love and care as this. This was the experience of God that the psalmist David had, but I think these words serve to show us the immediacy and the depth of God’s concern for each one of us. "O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. 3You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely."

Such intimate interest in our lives! Yet could this be a little unsettling or scary … the concept of God knowing us even better than we know ourselves; and their being no place to hide from God. God not only knows that quiet little word of abuse that we might utter to another, but also the violence that lays behind such attitudes even when they’re unspoken. God knows all our motives and attitudes and personal desires … on the face of it this could be scary … but really it should be quite the opposite! We shouldn’t really have any reaction of trepidation – if we fully appreciate that God still loves us even in the face of such negativity; indeed God loves us and seeks us relentlessly.

The psalmist begins with an acknowledgement that God is fully acquainted with him outside and in, yet despite the undoubted instances of inappropriate thoughts and unhelpful behaviour, God has brought the psalmist to the position where such “searching” and “knowing” is interpreted as a good thing. God doesn’t examine us to bring us down, quite the opposite, God searches us so that we will be built up. This journey of understanding culminates at the end of this psalm (v.23-4), with an open invitation for God to keep “knowing” and “searching” and “assessing” the psalmist’s life, and that this process will be appreciated – because it will lead to “the way everlasting”.

We, with the knowledge of Jesus from the New Testament, know that the ramifications of sin have been taken away by the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf. This psalmist, many centuries earlier, already had a foretaste of God’s heart in this matter.

God wants to embrace us and protect us from harm. When we go in the wrong direction, God doesn’t want us to be eternally condemned for this, or to watch us on an ever downward spiral, rather love us back under His umbrella. God doesn’t want us to destroy ourselves through continuing to make bad decisions, rather love us into desiring more of Jesus – where the living waters flow. When we are spiritually hungry, we have been given the opportunity of knowing Jesus – the ‘Bread of Life’.

Life can take us to some very dark places … through what other people have done to us, and because of our own poor decision-making. Can you see from this scripture, that this will not be the end, because God has not lost interest in us, He will search us out; God’s love for us has not waned, He has been drawn into the places we have gone and still has claims upon our heart. This is why we have a sense of guilt – because such moral integrity has a grip on us.

We all have at least little holes of pain within us. God wants to fill these holes (these voids) with abounding love. We need to reflect on these needs of ours and let God in to them! This will often require being honest about our problems, and owning up to such holes of pain to at least one other person, seeking their prayer support. Then you would have given this other person the right and responsibility of checking up on you periodically to see how you’re going.

Our minds might have drifted somewhat away from ourselves, to those others who we know for sure need a special touch of God’s Spirit. We need to keep praying for them, that they will be willing to let God address the deep holes in their life. But also, we ourselves need to be reflectors of God’s love and light, so that these others might recognize that there is hope after all! They need to recognize the hope and peace that has been placed within us, so that they come to see that such hope and peace is truly accessible (to them). We ourselves need to drink deeply at God’s well of love.

"13For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well." Here is one of the most profound appreciations of God’s intimate connection with a human life. From the moment of our conception, God has envisioned a purpose for our life, and begun to weave and to sculpture a person with the capacity to follow the will of God. This is connected with the Genesis 1 “creation story”, where the birthing of male and female human beings in God’s image was declared “very good”. Here was a soul well prepared for life on earth, and ready for ongoing relationship with God.

Without an openness to God any person will struggle. But when the choice is made to accept God’s loving and gracious presence, then life becomes meaningful. We come in all shapes and sizes, backgrounds, personalities and special abilities, but we all have one thing in common – a capacity to relate to a personal God. Despite the fact that God is the creator of the universe, has wisdom beyond our comprehension, and can be with all His people at the same time, we have the opportunity of getting to know (and being in intimate relationship with) this same God … having His undivided attention.

God already knows how the days of our lives will pan out. This is in no way pre-determined, but a fore-knowledge that will allow God to prepare us in such a way that we will be able to cope, even excel, through all the challenges of life. So just think this through – God knows what we will face, and the purpose we can fulfill, and be constantly preparing us with His nurturing Spirit.

We can get to the point where this psalmist has (in vs.19-22) … so locked into God’s purposes in the world, that we just can’t stand those who oppose God and get in the way. David saw many who were the enemies of God as they oppressed God’s people. This is the background of this disturbing outburst that follows. The psalms of course cover all the emotions of human life – even those that, in the cold light of day (and in the sight of Jesus), might be seen as incompatible with the Gospel.

"19O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— 20those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! 21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies." These verses were an honest reflection of how David felt in times of persecution, yet he understood that his way of dealing with this was not necessarily God’s way. It just appears that he could not cope with the level of patience that God was actually exhibiting. Our reactive black and white responses are not necessarily in line with God’s approach to what happens in the world.

In returning to his reliance on God’s thinking (at verse 23), the psalmist would have the chance to be liberated from such destructive feelings of anger and revenge. We can easily find fault with others and strike out at them, whilst conveniently ignoring our own shortcomings. We know that David had a very up and down experience in life; most of us have had an up and down experience of life as well. However, we must always be consciously aware of God’s love and design, and allow it to touch the very depths of our being. In this way, our journey will not disappoint us, but rather be growthful and promising and fulfilling.

We need to participate with God in an ongoing and rigorous inventory of our lives, so that we can truly enjoy an eternal life experience in the here and now. Life is a journey, and actually the travel is more important than the destination, because this is where we can make a difference!

"23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Amen.