Dear Friends,

Alas! Sometimes we are so messed up that we want to get away from God. What are our chances? Today’s devotional – both the Scripture and the poem – set them clearly forth. God bless you and keep you from such foolishness.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

• Psalm 139:1-24

  Psalm 139   English Standard Version (ESV)
  Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart
  To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
  139 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
  2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
  you discern my thoughts from afar.
  3 You search out my path and my lying down
  and are acquainted with all my ways.
  4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
  behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
  5 You hem me in, behind and before,
  and lay your hand upon me.
  6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
  it is high; I cannot attain it.
  7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
  Or where shall I flee from your presence?
  8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
  9 If I take the wings of the morning
  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
  10 even there your hand shall lead me,
  and your right hand shall hold me.
  11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
  and the light about me be night,”
  12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
  the night is bright as the day,
  for darkness is as light with you.
  13 For you formed my inward parts;
  you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
  14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
  Wonderful are your works;
  my soul knows it very well.
  15 My frame was not hidden from you,
  when I was being made in secret,
  intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
  16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
  in your book were written, every one of them,
  the days that were formed for me,
  when as yet there was none of them.
  17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
  How vast is the sum of them!
  18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
  I awake, and I am still with you.
  19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
  O men of blood, depart from me!
  20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
  your enemies take your name in vain.[b]
  21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
  And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
  22 I hate them with complete hatred;
  I count them my enemies.
  23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
  Try me and know my thoughts![c]
  24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
  and lead me in the way everlasting![d]

Psalm 139:1-24

“In all my vast concerns with thee,
In vain my soul would try
To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee
The notice of thine eye.

Thy all-surrounding sight surveys
My rising from my rest;
My public walks, my private ways,
And secrets of my breast.

If winged with beams of morning light,
I fly beyond the west;
Thy hand, which must support my flight,
Would soon betray my rest.

If o’er my sins I think to draw
The curtains of the night;
Those flaming eyes that guard thy law
Would turn the shades to light.

The beams of noon, the midnight hour,
Are both alike to thee;
Oh, may I ne’er provoke that power
From which I cannot flee.”

[Isaac Watts]