Honest With God: Finding Healing and Wholeness Through the PsalmsНамуна

“What is happening?!”

It felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest as I sat in the premarital counseling session. For months, I'd been carrying the weight of over $10,000 in credit card debt, too ashamed to tell anyone – especially the woman I was about to marry.

My parents had raised me with financial wisdom drawn from the Scriptures, stretching my father's modest pastoral salary to provide for our family without ever incurring debt. Yet here I was, twenty-four years old and struggling to pay my bills and make my minimum payments.

When the couple who was working with us suggested that they saw different approaches to finances in our questionnaires, my throat constricted. “What would my future wife think of me if she saw the full picture? Would she question whether I was mature enough for marriage? Would she run?”

But as I stumbled through my confession, something beautiful happened. Instead of judgment, I found acceptance. Instead of rejection, I found someone willing to walk through the mess with me. My wife saw my failure and chose to love me anyway.

That night, I caught a glimpse of something King David understood deeply about God's character. In Psalm 139, David marvels at the intimacy of God's knowledge of him: "You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar." (Psalm 139:1-2 NIV).

David isn't describing a distant, clinical knowledge like a file in heaven's database. He's describing the tender awareness of someone who pays attention to the most minor details of your life. God knows when you sit down exhausted after a difficult day. He perceives your anxious thoughts before you're even fully aware of them yourself.

Later in the same psalm, David declares, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Psalm 139:14 NIV) This passage isn't the voice of someone who believes God's knowledge leads to condemnation. This text suggests that being fully known leads to being fully loved.

The God who knows the number of hairs on your head also knows the number of maxed-out credit cards in your wallet. He knows your most profound shame, your greatest fear, and your most embarrassing moment. And His response isn't to turn away in disgust. He leans in with love.

You don't have to hide your mess from the God who already sees it all and calls you His masterpiece. Tomorrow, we’ll look at how God’s love is much more than just a moment in time!