Reflections in Coping
Ps 139:1-6
"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely; O LORD."
These six verses from the 139th Psalm reveal something incredible about the understanding and knowledge of God. The Psalmist is saying that God knows more about him than he knows about himself. The human personality has been referred to with the picture of the iceberg. I have some amazing pictures that show the pictures of the icebergs above and below the surface of the water. Icebergs are massive in their size when looking out on the water, they are sometimes very tall and some flat. But the reason that the human personality is referred to as an iceberg is that the part of the iceberg that you can see is only 20% of the whole piece of ice floating on the water. Just imagine the biggest icebergs on the water only show 20% of what the whole thing is in size.
"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely; O LORD."
These six verses from the 139th Psalm reveal something incredible about the understanding and knowledge of God. The Psalmist is saying that God knows more about him than he knows about himself. The human personality has been referred to with the picture of the iceberg. I have some amazing pictures that show the pictures of the icebergs above and below the surface of the water. Icebergs are massive in their size when looking out on the water, they are sometimes very tall and some flat. But the reason that the human personality is referred to as an iceberg is that the part of the iceberg that you can see is only 20% of the whole piece of ice floating on the water. Just imagine the biggest icebergs on the water only show 20% of what the whole thing is in size.
We are very much like this and
everyone knows this. You can know a person for many years and still learn
more about them each new day. In counseling I find it astounding when I
ask just a few questions and my client has a ‘light-bulb moment’. That
moment when they find that they have found out something new about their own
personality. I don't reveal it, they reveal it and I am there to
witness them first understanding this truth about them that they never knew
before.
The Psalmist is saying in this
passage that God already knows what we do know and the things that we don't
know about ourselves. There is nothing about me that God does not
know. This is important in coping with grief. Grief is the
reality of experiencing what is beneath the surface of the iceberg In
You! Coping with grief is, You exploring what is already under the surface
to know yourself better and understand how you connect that reality with
life. The realities of life are sometimes too harsh and we need God to
help us understand and settle in with who we are and how to maneuver through in
a way that is pleasing to Him.
Are you turning to the Lord in your
feelings? Are you talking with Him in your journal or your secret
closet? Are you calling out to Him in prayer? The great thing about God
is that you don't always have to say anything while communicating with Him.
The Holy Ghost reveals what needs to be communicated and you can know that God
is in the midst (Remember Romans 8:26-28). This is why the Psalm here is
so important. God knows who we are and is willing to comfort us in the
middle of our time of self-discovery. The exciting and the dirty. This
does usually looks so good and it can get rater ugly to understand yourself.
But God…. He is good…
The Promise here is that God has
searched me and knows everything above and below the surface of what is my own
experience and how I relate to the reality in which I find myself.
God is not lacking in knowledge but He also is never lacking to offer comfort to the hurting.
God is not lacking in knowledge but He also is never lacking to offer comfort to the hurting.
