Valued by God • Psalm 139
By Becky Brown
My mother passed away in September 1972 after an extended illness. The very next year, our U.S. Supreme Court justices ruled abortion legal in our country. For the next 49 years, over 60 million of our children lost their lives in the wombs of their mothers. I decided that the Lord must have needed my mother up there in heaven to help hold some of those precious babies!
In June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled on a case presented from the State of Mississippi which reversed that original January 1973 decision. In January 2023, Roe v. Wade would NOT be celebrating a 50-year “jubilee” golden birthday after all, as proponents had expected.
Life is sacred. We are valued by our Creator, the One Who made us and gave us life. From the moment of conception to the end of life, our lives matter. God is the author of life and the sustainer of life.
Our lesson this week is taken from the Book of Psalms, chapter 139. The notes which introduce this Psalm indicate that Israelite King David authored it and planned for it to be used in worship as a song or a reading. It was dedicated to the “choir director” by the author.
David addressed the Lord directly from verse one through verse 24. The Psalm begins with a searching and ends with a pleading. This is a deeply intimate Psalm. God knew David. David knew God. David expresses every word of Psalm 139 personally to God.
One of my favorite verses in Scripture is Genesis 2:7, which reads: “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” David and Moses (author of Genesis) were separated by nearly 1,000 years, but they both knew the origin and the Originator of life.
God knows us. God sees us where we are. He knows when we sit down and when we rise up. He understands our thoughts before we think them. He knows the motives and intentions behind them. He knows our words before we speak them.
He is ahead of us. He is behind us. By His Holy Spirit, He dwells within us. There is no place we can be that takes us out of His purview.
In verse six and verse 17, David declares that he simply cannot wrap his feeble mind around how much God knows and loves him. David probably felt unworthy of such care and provision. In Psalm 8:4, David wrote these words: “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?”
In other words, how in the world can God even spend one eternal moment of concern for us? The beauty of it all is that God has that exact concern for every single creature He has made on this earth.
Except for Adam and Eve, every person was formed and framed in the womb of a human mother. We were formed in darkness by the hand of a Master Weaver. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Before we were born, God knew the number of our days. Such knowledge baffles our brains. Each of the uncountable thoughts of God toward us is precious.
In the final two verses of the Psalm, David offers himself to the Lord for a thorough and complete searching of thoughts and motives. Pleadingly, David asks that his Maker reveal and remove any hurtful way that might be present in his life. He seeks to be led in the everlasting way of the Lord.
Life is sacred because God is our Designer. God is with us. God has a plan for each of His creations. God values us. We should value one another.
Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), a single missionary to the nation of India, stated it this way: “God knows before. God goes before. God sometimes shows before… but sometimes He doesn’t. We must keep walking in trust and obedience.”
Through her ministry establishing orphanages, Amy assisted in the saving of the lives of many forgotten children.
The heart is considered to be the seats of emotion and will of a person. The kidneys or renals represent our moral sensitivity. The deepest part of who we are reaches toward the One Who made us. He points us to others who might not know Him.
By valuing others, we point them to the One Who values all.
Brown is minister of missions at First Church, Richland.
