Pastor Fredo Ramos: As we continue praying the Psalms, today we come to Psalm 139. Oh, Lord, you have examined my heart and you know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I'm far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand.
I can never escape from your spirit. I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I go to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there, your hand will guide me.
Your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night, but even in darkness, I cannot hide from you. To the night shines as bright as day, darkness and light are the same to you. You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.
Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion. As I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 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. How precious are your thoughts about me, oh God. They cannot be numbered. I can't even count them.
They outnumber the grains of sand. And when I wake up, you are still with me. Oh God, if only you would destroy the wicked. Get out of my life, you murderers. They're they blasphemy you.
Your enemies misuse your name. Oh, Lord. Shouldn't I hate those who hate you? Shouldn't I despise those who oppose you? Yes.
I hate them with total hatred for your enemies are my enemies. Search me, oh, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point me point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. By way of reflection, I just am caught up in how David is enthralled with how intimately present God is to him, and then just automatically turns.
God, I hate people. This is such a a unique picture of what it's like to be human honestly, where in one moment, we're so just enthralled with the ways that God has made us, with how present he is to us. As one person put it, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. And then the next moment, we're like, man, I can't stand these people. Lord, they hate you.
They misuse your name. Right? Like, we're just we are a mixed bag every day of emotions and of thoughts and of feelings and of beliefs. And so prayer is an opportunity for all of that to come before God. And to simply say, God search me.
And so by way of invitation, think about maybe the things that you're holding back from God today. He knows what you're going to say before you say it. Your whole life is laid before him. There is nothing to hide before him. And the good news is God's already made up his mind about you And he's still chosen you.
He knows all of your failures. He knows everything you will do and yet he is still committed to you. He is still committed to me. And so don't hold back. Release to him now in prayer what needs to be said, what needs to be shared.
You are fully open before God, fully vulnerable before him, and yet completely and totally loved by him. Jesus, we hear you now inviting us to say the words that David prayed. Search us. Know our hearts today. See where there is anxiety.
See where there is worry. See where there is doubt. Would you search us and know us and in your patient timing reveal to us these things in us that need to change. That need to be touched by your love so that we can continue to become the people that Jesus is calling us to be. We pray these things now in his name.
Amen.