Still With Me

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
Psalm for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

"Oh Lord, You have searched me and known me."

That can be a terrifying statement. It seems pretty innocuous at first. God has searched us and known us. That's what God does; knowing is one of the things the Divine just does. But then I consider the reality of God searching and knowing me. Not the front that I put up. Not the version of myself with my best foot forward. Not Writer Chris. Not Youth Minister Chris. Not even Husband or Father Chris. Sure all of those are part of me.

But the me that God has searched and known contains a tangle of insecurities, failures and screw-ups too numerous to mention, a heart that wants to follow God, but often veers from that path in a single beat. I read that first verse and sometimes I am flooded with every mistake I've made, every person I've hurt, every bit of myself that I wish were better in some way and I feel like the stoner at high school who feels nervous when the drug dogs come around. Please God, don't search me.

Then I remember that the psalmist felt that too. If tradition holds and the psalmist actually was David then there had to be a tidal wave of dread that accompanied that realization. Because David, the Man After God's Own Heart™, had an affair and then murdered a guy to cover it up. He also went to war so much that when the king wanted to build a Temple for the Almighty, the prophet Nathan gave a hard pass from on high; David had shed too much blood. I'm not saying I'm better than David, but I imagine he felt that horror of "Please God, don't search me" as well.

Yet in spite of all that crap. In spite of the hypocrisy and failure. In spite of the spilled blood and broken relationships. In spite of it all, the psalmist realizes that God is always there. There is nowhere one can flee and escape the presence of God. To heaven or the land of the dead, to the far side of the sea or the darkest night. God stays as a constant companion.

And it begs this question of God: What are You so faithful when I am not? Why do You stay with me when there are quite obviously much better people out there? Why are You still with me? Why do You love me?

I don't have the answer to any of these questions. Yeah, I could theologically pontificate about God. I can run you through the creeds and cite a scores of scripture verses. But at the end of the day, I don't know why. Yet I do know that God does love me and David and you, dear person reading this. On my good days, I know that and on my less good days, I read this psalm and I power through the dread of the opening verse to the reminder that God is still with me despite it all. And it helps me to realize my inherent worth and the inherent worth of those around me. It gives me a modicum of hope for this world that seems sometimes like a raging dumpster fire because if God is still with me, was still with the psalmist, then God is still with us.

The psalm ends with a prayer, which I think is the only response to such a realization: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

It's strange. For God to know us that deeply is frightening at the start, but in light of God's faithfulness, we extend the invitation to search us again; to know our heart and our thoughts. To see the darkness in us, but lead us into the light. We realize that God knows us yet does not abandon us. So we ask God to lead each of us into becoming who we were meant to be. And we trust that even when have our missteps and screw-ups that God will still be with us just as God always has.