Hidden value

Read Psalm 139:1-6

GOD,investigate my life;
   get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
   even from a distance,you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
   I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
   before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
   then up ahead and you’re there,too-
   your reassuring presence,coming and going.
This is too much,too wonderful-
   I can’t take it all in! (THE MESSAGE)

Reading a passage like this can make us uncomfortable. We can’t hide our faults from God. Our muttered words,our secret thoughts,our mixed motives-we conceal them from others but not from the all-knowing God. This rightly brings conviction of our wrongdoing and thankful remembrance of God’s grace.

However,let’s consider such a passage from another angle. This God who knows our faults also knows our strengths. And just as we might be ignorant of our failings so too we might be ignorant of what is good within us. We can be too soft on our sin but also too hard on ourselves. Out of a twisted mock humility we might conclude we are of little value,we have little goodness in us.

The God who sees our darkness also sees our light. We,who are made in God’s image,have capacity for goodness as well as capacity for the opposite. Rather than concluding that this all-seeing and all-knowing God is simply concerned to remind us of our private failings,let’s remember he also wants to remind us of our value to him. He wants to bring out our strengths and have them used to bless his world.

When God shines a light on the recesses of our life,that light exposes what is wrong but also what is right. He knows the worst about us but also sees the best in us.

Blessings
David Reay