God’s Omnipresence and Omniscience.
For the choir director. A Psalm of David.
139 O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know [a]when I sit down and [b]when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
3 You [c]scrutinize my [d]path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
4 [e]Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
5 You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in [f]Sheol, behold, You are there.
9 If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
10 Even there Your hand will lead me,
And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will [g]overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,”
12 Even the darkness is not dark [h]to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.
Throughout this psalm, we are reminded that God not just knows us, but knows us intimately. He doesn’t just see what we do, but He knows it is coming long before it happens. Think about that, God knows the next time you are going to mess up, and the time after that, and yet He still “encloses you behind and before…”
God wraps His loving arms around us, knowing we may still lash out, we may still try to take control, knowing we may still break His heart. Yet He pursues us wherever we go, in v. 8, from the heavens above to the depths of Sheol, God is still there. Indeed, if the darkness seems complete, it is not. For darkness cannot overwhelm His light. When God is there, it is no longer dark, for He is light.
The only darkness is of our own making, when we shut God out and ignore Him. And even then, it is only us fooling ourselves… because He is still there, and thus it cannot truly be dark. We can choose though, like the Magician in Narnia at its founding, to close our eyes and shut our ears, pretending so hard that it becomes our reality.
Yet if we only once let God in, and open our eyes to His light, it will come rushing in. He is still there, never leaving any of us. He cannot, for God is everywhere (omnipresent) all the time. Do you need Him in your darkness today? Open your eyes, your ears, and your heart, and let Him in to your life. He stands at the door and knocks, listen!