Psalm 139:5

Psalm 139:5

Behind me and before me

David’s understanding of the deeply personal knowledge that God has of him, goes further. He realises that the Lord keeps him under scrutiny at all times and that whilst he exists in the present, every action in the past has been watched by the Lord God who also has his future planned out before him. God occupies time in a way that we can never understand, He is omnipresent, and He is as much part of past and future events as He is of what is happening right now. 

I have recently had some revelations about my past that have been quite troubling for they deeply influenced the person I turned out to be. A psychotherapist would take a human view of this but God, by His grace, showed me His spiritual perspective, He took me back over many years and helped me relive some events that happened and then revealed why they happened, suddenly I had an understanding of all this that had never entered my head before!  I realised that He had always hemmed me in behind, and there is also comfort in knowing that I will not escape His scrutiny in the future either! I hope we all believe this.

Job has a unique way of expressing these things, although it seems that his view of God’s scrutiny was not entirely favourable! “You fasten my feet in shackles; You keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet. (This was a mark of ownership that was used on slaves.) Job 13:27. I would rather be a marked slave of the Lord, than be a so-called free man of the devil, wouldn’t you? I am glad that my Father has watched over me and kept me on a tight rein for without Him there would have been many false steps, some of them possibly irrecoverable! 

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