Psalm 139

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.

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.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] 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.

This section of Psalm 139 is one of my favorite passages of the Bible. The poetry is exquisite, but the words and message are even more beautiful.

The psalmist reminds me that I can’t escape God’s spirit. And why would I want to? I am fully known only by God. He has known me from the moment of my conception and He has supported my growth through my entire life. Nothing that has happened to me has been a surprise to God – not my headaches, not my work (or lack thereof), not my good days, not my bad days, nothing.

What a blessed thought – the creator of the universe is able to know me individually. And I can know Him. And it only makes sense for me to do what it takes to walk every day closer to God. He’s big enough to manage the universe and yet makes himself small enough to care about me. Amazing grace.