This is the first post in series of reflections on Psalm 139.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
PSALM 139:1
Search me and know me.
No, I’d rather you just leave me be
to my misery—
my make believe fantasy
that denies there’s anything wrong with me.
It’s others who’ve wronged me,
who don’t get me,
who manipulate me into conformity,
wishing I would just be
who they want me to be.
But the wrong isn’t me.
Maybe it’s You who failed me.
Could it be that my deformity
is the fault of the One who formed me?
A failure of divine sovereignty?
Dissonance in Your poetry?
Because it’s not me.
I am fearfully and wonderfully
made because my hands made me.
I’m claiming autonomy.
You owe me an apology.
I reject Your claim on reality.
I am me,
so bring me Your doxology.
Honestly, this is me subconsciously.
My unspoken biography.
Self-idolatry and disillusioned hypocrisy
toxically inhabit my soul’s ecology
and sing my eulogy.
The reality—
the atrocity is me.
I sense it viscerally,
my catastrophe.
And You won’t just let me be.
Impossibly, Your love remains for me,
prevailing over my hostility and my animosity.
You meet my treachery
with Your constancy offering me
what I least deserve to be—
free,
made new by Christ in me.
