Monday, October 21, 2019

A Youthful Heart

      Today is my birthday, on which - as the years rush by - I always take time to pause and reflect over those years and the ones ahead.  Yesterday's Psalm reading is a favorite of mine, as it reminds me that no matter where I go, what I do, at what stage of my life, and even before I was born, God knew me and loved me.  God sees and knows all that I do and everything I am about to say, yet God gives me the ability to choose my path, to choose God or to go in another direction.  Yet even when I have been led astray through weakness or at the prompting of my soul's enemy, I am free to return to God ... and God patiently waits.  So I offer you this reading from Psalm 139.

O Lord, you have probed me and you know me; 
you know when I sit and when I stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar.

Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know the whole of it.
Behind me and before, you hem me in
and rest your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your spirit?
from your presence where can I flee?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall guide me,
and your right hand hold me fast...

Truly you have formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my  mother's womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully,
wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works.
My soul also you knew full well;
nor was my frame unknown to you
When I was made in secret,
when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes have seen my actions;
in your book they are all written;
my days were limited before one of them existed.
How weighty are your designs, O God;
how vast the sum of them!
Were I to recount them, they would
outnumber the sands;
did I reach the end of them, I should still be with you...

Probe me, O God, and know my heart;
try me, and know my thoughts;
See if my way is crooked,
and lead me in the way of old.

💙