Psalm 139

How precious to me are your thoughts, O god!  How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you.  [Psalm 139:17-18]

I never understood this passage.  I have said it and read it over and over.  I memorized the psalm for goodness sake.  But I never understood this part.  What thoughts?  Why are God’s thoughts precious to me?  I don't know what god is thinking, and why do I care that he has a lot of thoughts?  And what does being with him have to do with any of that?  One thing that continually astounds me about the god I love is that he can take something that I have heard over and over and in an instant change it's meaning to me forever.  I used to gloss over is passage, just breezing over it because I didn't really know what it meant and It simply didn't stand out.  But the other day the Lord put this psalm in my path once again and changed how I read this, and how I see Him.

I won’t lie, my first thought when I saw that Psalm 139 was the passage I was supposed to read that was that I might as well skip reading it because, since I have it memorized, I clearly already know everything there is to know about this passage.  God can't possibly teach me anything new from it right?  Wrong.  I mean, seriously.  Could I be any more arrogant?  I decided I would read through it anyway and ponder it a little, trying to pull out pictures of intimacy from it, since that was the theme of the bible study I was doing that day.  It makes sense that they picked this psalm to go with that theme, there are so many parts of this psalm that show how intimately God knows us, but for some reason, on this particular day, the Lord chose to reveal his Intimate love for me in these words.  These words.  The ones that had meant nothing to me thus far, even as I had spent so much time in this passage over the past couple years.

We, as humans, want to know we are loved.  And part of this includes wanting to know we are thought of often and missed when we aren't around.  We want to know we are wanted, that we matter enough to be longed for and adored.  As I read this words, it was like the Lord was saying to me, so incredibly clearly, "Oh hey Patty.  You know those thoughts of mine that you are reading about?  Did you know they are all about you?  There are so many wonderful thoughts I have of you, my dear.  Hundreds and thousands and millions of beautiful thoughts of you because I love you so dearly.  I know you better than you know you, and I love you.  You are always with me, always on my heart, always on my mind.  I long for you, and I delight in you.  I will celebrate the day that finally, after so much, I get to be with you forever."

I was astounded.  We all want someone to say that to us, to be so in love with us that they can’t get us off their mind.  I am no different.  But as I walked and pondered this psalm, I heard the God of the universe declaring that love for me.  I have it right here in writing, it’s no lie, I am loved by the Lord, the God of the universe, the Creator, the Mighty King.  Naturally, being the self-centered, unbelieving sinner that I am, my first thought was, "Why in the world would He want to love me?” But this passage isn’t about me, it’s about Him.  It’s a declaration of how deeply He loves us, longs for us, knows us, and loves us.  It’s a picture into the very heart of God.  And His heart is full of deep and beautiful thoughts of us.  Us.  His lovers, His created, His children. 

Being in love with someone that does not love you in return is brutal.  But intimacy with God is mutual.  It is not one sided.  It is not us humans begging an unreachable God to notice us.  No, it’s a mutual desire to be with each other.  We long for Him and He longs for us as well.   He wants us there with Him just as much as we want to be with Him.  That's why He died for us.  That's why He conquered death.  That's why He bridged the gap.  That's why He rescued us.  And that's why He blesses us so abundantly with life and love.  He desires us.  He longs for us.  We are on His heart and mind.  He does not withhold himself from us, He wants to give us all of himself, in every facet.  And He longs for us to give ourselves to him without holding anything back.  

Along with this psalm, I read an excerpt from a book called The River Within by Jeff Imbach.  In this excerpt, Imbach references a book called The Art of Intimacy.  Imbach writes,

“According to the Malones, intimacy is distinguished from closeness.  The word intimacy is derived from the latin word intima, meaning “inner” or “innermost,” and carries the idea of being in touch with our inner selves.  It does not focus on the feelings of warmth or the awareness of similarity.  Intimacy is the art of bringing our true selves into the relationship.”

Intimacy with the Lord is exactly what intimacy should be.  It is deep and fulfills a longing in us that we can't satisfy any other way.  The God who created us and knows us and loves us is the only one that can bring us into that intimacy, the only one that can bring out who we truly are as we go deeper into knowing who He truly is.  He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he loves us more deeply than we can even fathom.  We desire intimacy because we were made for it and because God is calling us into that intimacy with Him.  It's the deepest and truest intimacy out there, and all He wants to do is love us.  And all we have to do is let Him.  He brought Himself directly to us, to be with us, and He changes us to become who we were always meant to be.  It is in Him that we really find ourselves and experience the One that knows who we are, down to the deepest depths of ourselves.  That, my friends, is what intimacy is.  That is what we were made for.  That is how our God loves us.