Psalm 139:1-18

¹     O Lord, you have examined my heart

and know everything about me.

²     You know when I sit down or stand up.

You know my every thought when far away.

³     You chart the path ahead of me

and tell me where to stop and rest.

Every moment you know where I am.

⁴     You know what I am going to say

even before I say it, Lord.

⁵     You both precede and follow me.

You place your hand of blessing on my head.

⁶     Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too great for me to know!

⁷     I can never escape from your spirit!

I can never get away from your presence!

⁸     If I go up to heaven, you are there;

if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there.

⁹     If I ride the wings of the morning,

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

¹⁰     even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

¹¹     I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night—

¹²     but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Darkness and light are both alike to you.

¹³     You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴     Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it.

¹⁵     You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,

as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

¹⁶     You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out

before a single day had passed.

¹⁷     How precious are your thoughts about me, O God!

They are innumerable!

¹⁸     I can’t even count them;

they outnumber the grains of sand!

And when I wake up in the morning,

you are still with me!

New Living Translation

I am amazed at God's love.  The sheer delight expressed in this Psalm leaves me speechless.  How is it possible that the Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, actually cares about me?!

I have always understood that God knows everything about me.  He knows what I do, what I say, what I think, and how I feel.  He knows my motives, even when I lie to myself about them.  I know quite a bit about myself too - and what I know tells me that I am such a mess, nobody should love me.  Especially not a perfect, holy God.  

How can He look at me, and not see me as a disappointment?  I was conceived through rape, unwanted by either parent.  My father made several attempts to end my life before I was even born.  My mother ended up in the hospital a couple times while carrying me.  Not only was she being beaten by my father, she also had a serious kidney disease.  It is a miracle I was even born.

God was helping me to grow, protecting me, making sure that I was not only born, but actually born healthy.  He had a purpose for my life, and these obstacles would not stand in the way.

A multitude of abusers shattered my trust, and my spirit.  But God loves me.  He always loved me.  From my earliest memories, I knew He was real, and that He was with me.  I remember making up songs about God, and dancing in my crib.  Such an odd thing for an unchurched little girl to be doing, especially when surrounded by violence and perversion.

As I grew older, I lost that sense of innocent acceptance.  In my adult logic I have demanded an answer to the question "Why?  Why did You let me go through such suffering?  How can You be good, and just, and fair, and holy, and still let the innocent be hurt?"

I want to say I have an answer to that question.  I have theories, partial answers, and a growing sense of peace, but I can't debate this issue with others who have the same question because I still do not understand why God lets some things happen.

God has never felt compelled to explain Himself to me, any more than He felt He had to justify His actions to Job.  But He has given me an answer.  It doesn't explain why He did anything.  It is a declaration of His heart.  

He loves me.  He created me.  He knows everything about me.  He has a plan for my life.  He thinks about me all the time.  I am His passion!  He loves me so much, He came to earth, suffered more than I ever have, died an agonizing death, descended to Hell itself, and then arose again, just so that I could be forgiven for all my sins and live in His presence for eternity.  

He loves me.  And He loves you.  More than you can ever imagine.

I drove through Parkersburg, Iowa today.  This is the town that endured an F5 tornado on May 25, 2008.  The south side of town was devastated.  While driving through, I stopped to take a few pictures of the rebuilding process with my cell phone.

The thing that has struck me most, both here and at the site of another F5 tornado in Plainfield, Illinois near where my parents lived (Aug. 28, 1990), is how the landscape appeared to be scoured.  (For a picture of the Plainville tornado destruction, see http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2325/2805425525_f2e8aee080.jpg?v=)  In the areas under reconstruction, there are virtually no trees left standing.  In one of my pictures, there is a tree, but the branches appear to have all been cropped.  This was at the northern end of the path of destruction.  South of this, there are no trees left at all. 

I took a picture of the construction going on at the school, and another of a bank that is having the entire front end of the building rebuilt.  I had watched a video on You Tube that this bank's security camera took as the tornado tore through the building.  I am amazed that with the power of that storm, even half of the building was left standing.

Tornadoes fascinate me.  I would like to see one someday - preferably from a very safe distance!  I'm curious, but I'm not foolish!  It is incredible to think that so much destruction can come from moving air.

I may never have seen an actual tornado, but there have been the equivalent of F5's in my life.  One moment all is well.  A moment later, devastation hits and I'm left wondering how everything can fall apart so completely, so fast.

In Parkersburg, the destruction isn't the end of the story.  Where a few months ago there was nothing but debris, there are now beautiful new homes and businesses under construction.  The same is true in our lives.  

Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."  Storms come, and the results can cause all kinds of havoc.  But God is so sovereign, so amazing, that He can take the very worst that life throws at us, and use it to build something beautiful.  THAT is a power infinitely greater than the strength of an F5 tornado! 

Matthew 9:35-38

³⁵ Jesus traveled through all the cities and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And wherever he went, he healed people of every sort of disease and illness. ³⁶ He felt great pity for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn’t know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ He said to his disciples, “The harvest is so great, but the workers are so few. ³⁸ So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send out more workers for his fields.”

New Living Translation

Culture may have changed since the days of Jesus, but people haven't changed.  Our problems may look different on the surface, but when you get right down to it, the core of our issues are the same now as then.

It seems that even the most "together" people I know have problems they can't solve.  Issues involving finances, health, relationships or the past seem to be plaguing everyone...myself included.

I had a co-worker ask me today if I would pray for the Rapture.  She was joking...sort of.  Life is hard at times, and the desire to find the perfect escape can be pretty strong.  That is why addictions are so rampant.  A few moments of drunken forgetfulness can be the only relief some people get.

I don't know why life has to be so hard.  Why is it that as soon as one crisis passes, another is about to begin?  It is exhausting.  I've felt the cloud of despair settling over me too many times to count.

Every time I've felt hopeless, I felt completely alone.  I didn't know what to do, where to go for help, or even how to get up in the morning and face the day.

I knew I wasn't alone.  Not only did I have a wonderful, supportive husband, but I also had my Lord.  It would be so neat and easy to say that the problem all along was that I had wandered from Jesus, and this depression was the consequences.  All I had to do was repent and start praying and reading my Bible again and all would be well.  But the hard truth is that some of my darkest times were when my spiritual life was at it's strongest.  

God has always helped me to recover.  I can't really explain how, I just know that as I held on to Him and His promises, eventually the darkness faded and hope returned.  He was my anchor when life seemed to make no sense at all.

Why does God let me go through these struggles?  It seems wrong.  If I am close to Him, shouldn't life be full of peace and joy?

I think part of the answer is in this passage.  Jesus wants me to be like Him.  He wants me to see the hurt that others are battling, and to point them to the only real help there is.  Sadly, I am not as compassionate as Jesus is.  I want to be, but it doesn't come as naturally as I would like.  Having to go through hard times myself has made me more compassionate.

It is easier to offer advice than it is to offer empathy.  But having been on the receiving end of all sorts of spiritual-sounding nuggets of advice myself, I know just how much these well-meaning phrases can hurt when the person saying them isn't really sharing my pain.  Instead of easing my burden, it increased it.  I felt unheard, uncared for and judged, much like Job did when his so-called friends tried to help him.

But there were others who understood what I was going through.  Sometimes all a friend had to do was be there; no words were necessary.  I felt cared for, loved, and understood.  The problem didn't magically disappear, but it became easier to bear because of the empathy of a friend.  

And then, that friend could point me to the One who offers me real hope.  Often my attitude did need to be adjusted, or I had to repent, or I had to forgive someone who had hurt me.  But no preaching or lecturing was necessary.  I didn't need correction, I just needed compassion.  That opened a door to the healing work of Jesus.    

Because I have been hurt myself and was comforted by a compassionate friend who pointed me to Jesus, I can do the same for the hurting people all around me.  If I stop preaching, or throwing good theology at others, and just love them and point them to Jesus, I wonder how many lives can be changed?

Romans 4:4-8

⁴ When people work, their wages are not a gift. Workers earn what they receive. ⁵ But people are declared righteous because of their faith, not because of their work.

⁶ King David spoke of this, describing the happiness of an undeserving sinner who is declared to be righteous:

⁷     “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven,

whose sins are put out of sight.

⁸     Yes, what joy for those

whose sin is no longer counted against them by the Lord.”

New Living Translation 

Verses 7-8 are a quote from Psalm 32:1-2.  David had sinned greatly with Bathsheba, and he knew all about shame and regret.  He also knew all about God's grace and forgiveness.

I have a lot of regrets.  I have sinned so much.  If I could turn back time and do some things over again, I would in a heartbeat.  The shame of my failures can be so intense, sometimes it takes my breath away.  Most of these failures are so private that nobody else even knows about them.  But I can't forget them.

The hope given in these verses, from King David's testamony and the teaching of the apostle Paul, is that God does forget them.  His forgiveness and cleansing is so deep and complete that if I take God at His word, I don't ever have to let the shame of the past weigh me down again.

David's sin was recorded in Scripture.  Everyone who has read the Bible for the past few thousands of years has known about his sin.  And yet, he was set free from the shame of it.  Sure, people may still label him an adulturer and a murderer.  But I don't know one single Christian who thinks of David in those terms.  They instead see him as God declared him to be:  a man after God's own heart.  

God forgave him, cleansed him, and called him righteous.  And this wasn't because of some great deed that David did to make up for his great sin.  There is nothing he could do that would ever make up for what he had done.  He couldn't bring Uriah back to life.  He couldn't give Bathsheba her purity back...or his own for that matter.  

No, David didn't do a thing to deserve what God did for him.  All he did was take God at His word.  He said that if anyone who sins would confess their sin, that He would be faithful and just, and forgive them of their sin.  David didn't just give a mental nod to this, he depended on it for his very life.

I can't imagine how he could have lived with the public exposure of his very worse sin, if he didn't have the comfort of knowing that God had forgiven him and declared him righteous.  He allowed God to take away his shame, and he didn't look back.  He moved on.  It is true that his sin had some lasting consequences.  But he didn't wallow in the shame.  He didn't try to hide it.  He didn't let it define him.  He belonged to God.  He was made clean and pure again.  

This happiness, this hope that Paul said David had, can also be mine.  It can be anyone's.  It only takes a moment to stop running from the shame, and instead confess it.  Repentance can seem so hard, because it hurts to own the shame that we rightfully deserve.  But the freedom it brings is soooo worth it!