Seeing Myself As God Sees Me
“O Lord, You have looked through me and have known me.”
Psalm 139:1 (NLV)
I was standing in a supermarket queue waiting for my purchases to be checked out. I was truthfully not using the time to consider the great and noble things of life, the wonders of eternity or even what to do with the rest of the day, when my eye caught a large red notice hanging from the ceiling, down at the end of the row of check-outs: It read ‘Self Scan.’ With a mind that was not fully engaged in anything profitable together with the capacity of the English language to be misread, I wondered, “You mean I can scan myself?”
So if I did, what would it bring up on the display? Suppose the scanner registered me as a garment? If so, my label might read: ‘material—flesh and blood; Made in Britain; Washing instructions: hand wash, do not spin, dry clean or bleach.’ And if it saw me as a food item the scanner might say: ‘This item two for one’ – no, one’s quite enough! Or it might declaim ‘This item is past its sell-by date’ – yes, there are days when I might agree with that.
The queue moved on and I handed over my basket of goods to be checked. I left, of course definitely still looking like a product of this age, but actually belonging in the kingdom of God. My ‘invisible label’ reads: ‘Made in the image of God, does not need cleaning, already washed in the blood of the Lamb.’ And whatever my imaginary self-scanner would have thought I was, it would have to admit: ‘This item has already been purchased and paid for.’
And not only purchased but already scanned, to a depth unmatched by any machine on earth. As David said. “I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.” (Psalm 139:15-16 MSG) Silly then, isn’t it, how we keep things from our Father and avoid owning up to the error of our thoughts and ways to God, since he knows everything about us. We even manage to keep a lot of what we are secret from ourselves. So having recognised and acknowledged God’s all-knowingness, may David’s closing prayer at the end of his psalm be ours too:
Prayer
“Look through me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there is any sinful way in me and lead me in the way that lasts forever.” (Psalm 139:23-24 NLV)
Amen
Study by Hilary Buck
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About the Author:
Hilary Buck pastors Grace Communion in Lewes.
Local Congregation:
Grace Communion – Lewes
The Priory School
Mountfield Road
LEWES
BN7 2XN
Meeting Time:
Saturday 11:00am
Local Congregational Contact:
Hilary Buck
Email: hilaryjbuck@gmail.com