Praying the Psalms With Hope With N.T. WrightНамуна

Humility Before God

Psalm 139 ponders the questions raised by Psalms 1 and 2 through the lens of God’s grandness. One way of thinking might suggest that God, being so great, must be uninterested in the world. But the psalmist affirms that God knows the innermost thoughts of humans. This should humble us and reassure us. God knows every aspect of our being, and if we believe that God ultimately cares about the personal, then we’re in good hands. This is why the generalized vision of Psalms 1 and 2 can be trusted as the final outcome.

Psalm 139 opens by declaring, “Lord, you have searched me out. You have known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up.” You know everything that I do, everything that I am. That may sound scary, but it is meant to evoke a sense of awe and wonder. God is present and knows our thoughts. These verses are about the humility we should have before God's all-seeing, all-knowing eye and heart.

The psalmist speaks of a radical mismatch between the human and the divine, both as comfort and as warning. He says, “If I try to count your thoughts, they are more than the sand. I come to the end of everything that I could possibly imagine, and you are still there, still greater than I could imagine.” But from this knowledge that the psalmist has of God's knowledge, he looks at two things that are, as they were, in parallel. He looks out at the world and realizes there is a lot of wickedness and evil. Having discerned God's knowledge of himself, he longs for the world to be rid of that evil. But then, more scary, he thinks about himself again. And in the last two verses, he says, I look at myself, and I realize that there is still a lot of hidden evil deep within myself, and that needs dealing with as well.

Verses 19 to 22 and verses 23 and 24 act as parallels of a sort. 139:19-22 reminds us that there is evil in the world that we need God to deal with. We need passages like this, however uncomfortable, to remind us that, from God's point of view, wickedness is about the rejection of his good plan for the world. It's about saying no to creation and yes to anti-creation. But then verses 23-24 provide the necessary counterpoint of humility to follow that. “Search me, O God. Test me and know my thoughts.” The psalmist invites God to search him out and see if there is any wicked way in them.

It's as if the author of Psalm 139 has in mind Psalm 1’s personal sphere and Psalm 2’s global sphere and takes that as a call to turn the prayer for God to do justice inward, to look at the ways their own life works with or against this goal.

Reflect:

What does it mean to you for God to “search and know” your flaws? What role do you play in that process? Are there any attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors God might want to cleanse or heal within you?