Questions: How important is our spiritual foundation? How important should it be?

Context: In Christian theology, one of the core attributes we see revealed repeatedly in Scripture is that God knows everything (omniscience). Is it not both prudent and wise, therefore, for us to look to the One who is omniscient? Asked another way, should not the wise person build upon the foundation of the One who knows all, the Creator of all things?

Text: I love the way David phrases it in Psalm 139:1-18:

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,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
f I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

Teaching: What we see in Psalm 139 are the heart and mind of a man who has been gripped by God. God is not just a name David throws out there like Hollywood actors might throw out a pittance of appreciation when accepting a prize. God is not a t-shirt slogan or lettering on a rubber bracelet. In Psalm 139, we see a man with a heart and mind renewed by God such that the tone and timbre of David’s theology here are those of benediction. David knows that God sees him through and through. And so, David is a humble man. Why? Because he knows God is holy and that none of us escapes God. We cannot outrun God.

David, in talking to the Lord, says that the Lord “formed [his] inward parts” and “knitted [him] together in [his] mother’s womb” (v. 13, ESV). That’s an intimacy that staggers the mind. I remember when I was in graduate school many moons ago, and where I went to university, we were just a few miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway. We would hike the trails often that wind through the Smokies and much of the Appalachian Trail. But if night came sooner than we planned for, when darkness fell upon us, and those stars became visible on clear nights, and the moon glowed in its ghostly light over those magisterial hills and forests, it all humbled us. Why? Because we realized—time and time again—that God is so much bigger and more majestic than we often understand. The stars and planets and galaxies stretched on and on. Their Author is greater still. Who laid the foundation of all that we beheld on those starlit nights in western NC? It wasn’t us. It wasn’t David in Psalm 139.

Encouragement: When it comes to our spiritual foundation, we often don’t know how desperately we need it until we’re amidst times of duress or suffering. And those times invariably come. How vital, therefore, for us to build upon the Rock rather than shifting sands. As David penned in v. 14 of Psalm 139: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14, ESV). David knew the Foundation was not wish fulfillment, or psychological mumbo-jumbo, or pep talks, but rather the One who says, “ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, ESV). The Foundation is not only there, but He welcomes us pilgrims all the way home.