Psalm 139

How precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast the sum of them!

Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When we were children, we were told, "God is watching you!"  But that warning carried overtones of threat:  you will be punished because God is watching you.

As parents, though, we catch a glimpse of what it really means that "God is watching" us.  I think it is fair to say that everything a child---even an adult child---does or thinks is "watched" by a parent.  We rejoice at the wonderful things a child does; we take pride in his/her accomplishments; we are grieved at the sorrows our children inevitably experience.  It is our great joy to be able to assist our children when they are in trouble, to calm them when they are anxious or worried, to listen to them when they need to talk. 

In Psalm 139, we sense the joy of someone who has just awakened to the "watching" God who never ceases thinking about those He has formed in the womb.  David, presumably, who wrote this psalm, knows that he is never without the watchful and loving presence of God; he also knows that if God is thinking about him, he can never be left alone or without support.  He knows that God/ Yahweh, like any parent, cannot stop thinking about David.

In the previous psalm, 138, David writes: The Lord will perfect [the things] which concern me (v.8).  Most translations read: The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me, but I think the first version drives home more clearly that every little thing which concerns us is a matter of God's thought and action on our behalf.  If we know this at the deepest level of our being, we can rest, handing over the "things which concern" us.

One of my students once asked, "Do you think God thinks we ask too much?"  My answer was, "I think He thinks we don't ask enough!"  I have heard people scoff at those who ask God for a parking place, as though that were the least of His concerns in a world gone mad.  Nothing that concerns us is too small to concern Him---and if we don't ask in the little things, we have no confidence even if we beg in the big things.  What is too small for God? 

Let me put it this way:  If we were shopping together and you were 25 cents short of the total, would you refuse to ask me for a quarter because the amount was too small?  Would you wait until you needed $5.00 to ask for help?  or $500.00?  (because I had bigger things to think about than your need for a quarter?)

I might refuse your request for $500.00 because you had already spent $1,000 at the slot machines, but if you wanted a quarter to throw away on the slots, I might laugh and say, "here you go!" 

I think we need to take David's insight--inspiration---literally and begin to walk with God, sit with God, and stand with God at every (tiny) moment of our lives.  Then I think David's insight will become our own---how precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God; how vast the sum of them.  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand!