A Life of Worship: A Means of Grace
A Reflection on Psalm 139
I love watching the night sky. The stars are so beautiful and overwhelming. I consider myself an amateur stargazer in the loosest sense of the word. When life is in chaos, I look up at the sky, take a deep breath, and find peace in my soul. If the God of the universe can keep up with all those celestial beings and keep them where they are supposed to be, then God can keep up with me and keep me in orbit, too.
I recently experienced the crazy phenomenon of being able to view the northern lights in North Alabama. It was amazing, but I heard many people missed it. My family almost did. With the naked eye, one could make out a slight red tint to the sky and even some weird cloud-like substances. It wasn’t until we took out our phones that we were able to see the magnificence of the night sky. It was gorgeous, and I was in awe. My husband had to practically drag me inside the house or I would have been content oohing and ahhing and snapping pictures all night long.
As I thought about this passage in Psalms, I could not help but make the connection between our relationship with God and my experience with the northern lights. Often we will only see a dark night sky when we think of God. We begin with some vague understandings about God. But when we pull out better lenses, we can see more clearly the depth and the vastness of God. It is that depth as we peer intently upon God that we cannot help but burst forth with worship.
The psalmist of Psalm 139 is experiencing this level of awestruck worship. The psalmist praises God for God’s goodness and deliverance from life-threatening situations like illness, oppression, enemy attacks, but also the psalmist celebrates God’s creative ingenuity of creating us humans, who are such complex beings inside and out. It is a response of thanksgiving for knowing God deeply and being known by God intimately. Just as we are known by God, God desires us to know God in the same intimate way.
After I delivered my daughter, Gwenivere, I thought I was a bad mom because I didn’t “know” my daughter. There is this myth of motherhood that you will just automatically bond with your kid. After 9 months together in one of the most intimate of ways, I was holding my child at a loss for who she was. It took time to know her and for her to know me. It took time to meet her needs, to sing her lullabies, to play with her, and to help her grow. But through that intentionality to know and to be known, we discovered each other.
Our relationship with God is the same way. To know God and to be known by God, we must spend time with God. It involves a level of vulnerability and the willingness to be known.
To see God clearly, and to even know who we are, we can use the lens of the means of grace to see past the surface level to the really deep and awe-inspiring truths of our faith. The Means of Grace is a Methodist term for the outward things we do that point to the inward transformation God is doing in our lives. Means of grace include things such as prayer, partaking in Holy Communion, scripture reading, small group studies, and fasting among other things. It is common things that we do to become more aware of God in our lives and seek to learn and grow both individually and corporately as the body of Christ in our faith.
Because we are intimately known by God, we cannot hide from God. God sees all of us. God knows the amount of hairs on our head and how many skeletons are in our closets. That can be quite an overwhelming realization especially for those of us who are private people. While it first appears to be the beginning of our doom, what we realize is that this ability for God to see and know all of us is actually our saving grace.
Despite our bouts of depression, our loathing of self, and rituals of self-harm; and despite thinking we are unlovable, unworthy, and forgotten, the God of the universe knows us, sees us, and hears us and doesn’t turn away from us. God is aware of our goodness and our flaws and offers us outstretched arms of refuge and acceptance. It is not just shelter, but a gift of belonging. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 8:38-39 there is nothing that can ever separate us from the love of God.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NRSV)
No other person, no other force or power, and not even our own selves can keep away the love that God has for us. That is the good news of the gospel! That is worth praising and proclaiming to all!
When we discover how awesome the Triune God is (the God who creates, the Son who saves, and the Holy Spirit that transforms), we cannot keep from praising how wonderful it is to be known by such a love as this. It should spur us to sing a little louder, move a little more freely, love a lot more deeply, and express our faith more boldly.
