In Psalm 139, we read that God knows us and still calls us beloved. God knows our thoughts and still holds on to the same divine dream for our lives, unchanging since we were created. Even with all of our weaknesses, God doesn’t run from us. Because of God’s nearness, we are never alone. And why does David write that such knowledge is too wonderful for him? He was the king of Israel, but consider what David was. He was an unlikely leader, not the one others would have chosen. He was a confessed adulterer. He was a rapist and a confessed murderer. He had multiple wives, a far cry from the picture of shalom painted in the garden. Yet God still called him and chose him and even called him a man after God’s own heart. I understand how David could struggle to believe that God smiled whenever God thought of him.
Lisa Sharon Harper is the author of The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right along with several other books. A sought-after speaker, she is also the chief church engagement officer at Sojourners. Content excerpted from The Very Good Gospel by Lisa Sharon Harper Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Sharon Harper. Excerpted by permission of WaterBrook, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
