Lord, You Search Me and You Know Me

Psalm 139 New International Version

1 You have searched me, Lord,

    and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I stand;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

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.

When I was young, I had this big fear of God. I was always afraid that God could see into my heart and could read my every thought. After all, I was always taught that God is all seeing and all knowing. I used to try and hide from him to see if that feeling of fear would go away. I’d go into my room and close the door to see if I could escape Him there – I’d even hide under the covers. No! He could see me there. I just knew it. He could see through walls and even under blankets. Wherever I went, He was always there. That was scary.

This week, Psalm 139 was used for two days in a row in the readings. Yesterday I got a book marker in the mail that had Psalm 139 on it and today in the Morning Prayer in the Magnificat was the same Psalm. I think God knew me and searched me and was telling me I had to blog on what Psalm means to me. For me, it is one of the most probing Psalms I've read. You can read the entire Psalm with the link above which happens to be the best Bible website I’ve seen.

Knowing that God could see my every thought and action was very scary and led to a feeling of guilt. Looking back, the feelings of guilt and of the fear of God actually helped me. They helped me form my conscience. The feelings helped me determine what was right and what was wrong. Of course I also had my parents to help guide me along the right paths when I went astray. But even if I didn’t have my parents; even if I didn’t have my religious education classes, I knew in my heart what was right and wrong

When I strayed from the straight and narrow – from what I knew was right – I felt guilty. I knew that I had let God down. I knew that I had been selfish and did what I wanted to instead of what God wanted me to.

When I was young, my dad would take us to confession once a month. I used to worry about going into the confessional and telling the priest all my sins. What if he recognized who I was? Then he would know how bad I really was.

I was less than excited before I went into the confessional because I had all of these thoughts of self-doubt running through my mind. But then something happened when the priest said, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. All of a sudden, I always felt like a huge burden had been lifted off my back. I felt free again, relieved of my guilt.

 I write this from the perspective of my youth because they are so vivid in my mind even though I still have those feelings as an adult. But sometimes I let fear overcome the freedom that I know I will feel when Christ, through the priest, absolves me of my sins. May Psalm 139 inspire me and hopefully you, to receive Confession more often for the Psalm also says:

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.

Deacon Greg Beckel