Knowing God - Psalm 139:23-24

(fp)

You trace my journeys ...

Psalm 139:2

 

I love that image of God tracing my journey. It's like he runs a gentle finger over the lines of my life. As it says in another Psalm -- 121:8 -- the Lord will watch over your going out and your coming in. Indeed, he'll gently trace our journeys ... and he'll do it in three ways ...

 

1) He wants to know -- and surely does know -- where you're going today, what you'll be doing today, and what you hope to accomplish. In other words, God attends to our present.

 

2) He's watched over you journeys in the past. He's cheered for you, encouraged you, challenged you, and wept with you when the sins of the world and the shadow of death have intruded on your days.

 

3) He also holds the future in his hands, and is tracing your journey in advance. Our gracious Father says -- Jeremiah 29:11 -- "I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not for disaster, plans to give you a future and a hope." Now, we can easily stray from those plans -- and he knows in advance if we will -- but our Lord always stands ready to write an new plan and another direction for you.

 

With all your heart, trust in the Lord and invite him to write a more glorious future for you. And then invite him to give you the strength to follow his ways instead of your own.

 

In Christ's Love,

a guy who's found a compass along the path

and it points to our true north!

----------------------------------------------
When I read this verse I immediately thought of the cartoon Family Circus and Billy's adventures ... instead of going straight from point A to point B Billy takes a long, circuitous route and it is marked with a dashed line that I always traced with my finger. When you look at the cartoon - you can see the entire journey - but Billy can only see where he is at the moment.

I am still struggling with the last part ... trusting with all my heart, inviting him to write a more glorious future and for strength to follow his ways.  Yet there is comfort in the fact that he knows that ... it is all part of the crazy journey being traced!