Psalm 139:13-18 “Thankfulness”

I am twin. I have a twin brother who lives in Los Angeles. We do not look alike; in fact, we are quite different in appearance. So, I have had the experience in my life of actually knowing somebody else from inside the womb. I spent nine months of my earliest development inside the womb with my brother right there the whole time. I would like to say that I remember those nine months with fondness; however, the truth is that I really do not remember being in the womb with my brother at all. That is probably a good thing. I can imagine that we plotted together to kick my mother in both sides at once. Or, perhaps we plotted to have alternating hiccups. God knows.

Truly, God knows. As the Psalm for today tells us, we are known by God from the time that we are in the womb. When I was in the womb with my twin brother, God knew me. God knew my brother as well. God still remembers us as we were when we were in the womb even though we have long since forgotten that experience ourselves.

When we read this Psalm we get the sense that we must have been really close to God while God was forming us in the womb! We must have felt directly the hand of God upon us! Then, of course, we were all born into this world, and that sense of God’s hand forming us was replaced with the stark cold reality of this fallen world.

We can look at the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and see that surely God was manifest in Christ’s being formed in the womb of a virgin named Mary. All the power and majesty of the Creator God was compressed into the womb of one woman. That was truly a miracle.

When we get to the end of the life of Jesus, when He is being nailed to the Cross and taking the sins of all people throughout all time into himself where they would be destroyed, Jesus cries out in agony, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?!” In this we can see how that which is most Godly and pure can be totally destroyed by humans. In this world, we all have that cross to bear.

I once read a story about a mother and father who were concerned about their five-year-old daughter who was found one day sleeping in the crib where she used to sleep as a newborn. The parents were so concerned that they brought the child to a psychologist who sat the child down and went through the usual barrage of Rorschach tests and the like. Finally, seeing no abnormality in the child’s responses, the psychologist asked outright what she was doing by going back into her old crib. The child answered plainly that she remembered when she was younger sleeping in that crib and being close to God. She said that she had heard God speaking to her most clearly, but as of late she had had trouble hearing God.

You see, I think we can all agree that God knew us in the womb. The question for us is how is our relationship with God doing today! Are we still able to sense God’s hand upon our lives? Are we still listening and hearing what God has to say to us?

And, I want to be clear that I am not talking about whether God still knows us, but I am asking whether we still know God. The first part of Psalm 139, a part that we have not yet read in worship today, states clearly that God is still actively involved in our lives (verses 1-5): O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up: you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.”

Let me be ever so clear on this point: God’s hand is upon each one of us here today. The power of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, is upon you.

Do you recall the story in the Bible (Matthew 14:22-33) of Jesus walking on the water out to the boat where the Disciples where on the Sea of Galilee? They see him just walking across the waves. Peter is especially amazed and excited by this miracle, and he asks Jesus if he, that is Peter, can also come out of the boat and walk on the water. Jesus calls him out, and indeed Peter is able to walk right upon the water. In that same moment, his doubts and fears suddenly overtake him apparently. He begins to sink into the water. Jesus then stretches out his hand to Peter, and Peter is saved.

The hand of God is right there upon each one of us. Yes, there will be times when we know that we can do great things through our faith, but then we are overtaken by doubt. I believe that is when we will be most assured that in fact the hand of God will be stretching out to save us and reconfirm our faith. I think about Peter stepping out of that boat into the water and think that that is like the whole picture of doing Christ’s ministry. We step into impossible situations out of our love and faith in Christ. We constantly find ourselves in sink or swim situations only to discover that we don’t have to sink or swim because the hand of God is reaching out and taking care of us!

I think that sometimes God knows that we are going to not be able to walk on water right away. God knows this and uses this to prepare our hearts and enlighten us unto truths. God sends us under water as it were. Think of Jonah being thrown overboard and swallowed by the big fish. Think of Saint Paul swimming for his life to reach the beach in Malta.

When we search out God as much as we want air to breathe, then God will begin to enlighten our minds and open our hearts to a full understanding and a faith that will be strong enough to do miracles.

God wants us to know Him. That is why God came down in the form of Jesus Christ! Through Christ, we come to know God. So, it is not just as we read in the Psalm that God knows us, but we have this way of knowing God too through Christ. Let’s look at John 10:27-30, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

In this we see that we might not understand everything that is happening in our lives, but we know that the Good Shepherd is watching out for us and will lead us to safety in all things. Nobody can really harm us—nobody can snatch us out of God’s hand. God’s hand is truly upon us in order to save us!

No, we don’t know God like we know a theorem in geometry. We know God as a sheep knows the Shepherd. We know that God has a plan for us that will keep us always in His fold. We must have absolute faith in this or we will end up drowning in our own doubts.

Does this mean that there is such a thing as predestination? That would mean, that God has planned out every minute of our existence. I will share with you that I do not personally believe in predestination. To say that God knows us and has a hand on our lives is not the same as saying that we have no free will and that it makes no difference what we think or do because God has planned it all out.

I have this understanding, right or wrong, that comes out of my understanding that God is still in the act of creation in this world. It seems that God rested on the 7^th day, but then went back to creating on the 8^th. It is the nature of a creator God to create. Why would God stop creating? Jesus himself tells us in John 5:17, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” God’s saving us through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is a further act of Creation. We are in fact all reborn in that moment of grace.

Yes, God has a plan. But, we all know that God is still working. It is our faith and belief that the plan includes Jesus coming again into the world to work more miracles and to finally create the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. We know that we are part of that plan. In Revelation 3:20 we read Jesus saying, “Listen, I am standing at the door knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”

Then, in that time that will be created by God when the Heavenly Kingdom comes, we might finally know what the whole plan for our lives was from the start with God. In the meantime, we have the Word of God in the Holy Bible and the assurance of our faith in Christ that God has known us and continues to work in and through our lives. Saint Paul writes in Ephesians 4:6 “One God and Father of us all who is above all and through all and in all.”

Our reaction to all of this is one of thankfulness. To coin a cliche’ we have the “attitude of gratitude.” This is so much better than the “. . .Tude of being rude!” I am thankful to God because God created me–knitted me together. I am thankful because God sought me out to redeem my life through Jesus. God continues to do great things in my life, and at the end of my days I will only have thanksgiving in my heart. Amen