O Lord, you have searched me
and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
The 19th-century French contemplative Therese of Lisieux said: "Our faults cannot hurt God. Nor will our failures interfere with our own holiness, for genuine holiness is precisely a matter of enduring our own imperfections patiently."
Hmm, I always thought that holiness was the absence of sin. The more perfect in thought and behavior you could be, the holier you were. Perhaps, as Therese suggests, holiness is not the pursuit of perfection but rather a matter of bearing with yourself, even the more distasteful parts of yourself, your sin.
First though, awareness is necessary. This patient enduring can only be accomplished by those who are aware of their imperfections. Holiness requires self-honesty. You can't sit patiently with that which you deny exists. Simple enough. But really, who wants to sincerely probe the dark recesses? Self-examination is difficult work. As distasteful as it sounds though, self-examination is much more tolerable than being examined by another.
The psalmist, in Psalm 139, speaks of being searched, or examined, by God. Read through those six verses. Do they make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable?
The author of this Psalms seems to be in wonder and awe of God.
ReplyDeleteI think the psalmist says it all. God accepts us in our times of joy and in our times of suffering and in the times when we hurt each other. Even though God knows us so very well there is not a time when we are not loved by God.
One definition I read somewhere of 'holiness' is to totally trust God. This psalmist does just that. Even though God knows his every move and thought, he trusts God totally.
Sin can be self-centeredness. Sin can be estrangement from God. Sin can be a lack of trust in God. Anything that takes us away from our being in God. Sin could also be a hardened heart where God can not enter. God cannot fill a heart that is hardened or filled with one's ego. The paradox of this is that we still have to hold the 'sins' in their place to learn compassion for others who are also struggling with these 'sins'.
This set of verses from Psalm 139 could be a doxology. A doxology is not just a certain hymn sung after an offering, but a category of praises of God. Some people wonder, “Does God require doxologies?” I urge these people to be patient. At a certain point in their spiritual path they will find praising God to be a spontaneous, heartfelt desire. Sometimes this movement of the Spirit within us will be at the time of a natural wonder, a special moment with a child, a surprising act of hospitality that another gives us, and even a new learning that comes from a time of trial.
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