Reading On Autopilot

I must confess, there are verses in the Bible I unintentionally skim over. Not because they are unimportant but because I have read them so many times. My brain goes on autopilot as soon as I see the reference. But then there are these moments when something clicks and I realize I've been missing the full context of the verses. Suddenly they are no longer Bible verses I've known since I was a little kid but verses that give me a clearer picture of who God is and who I am as His daughter.


Psalms 139 took on a new light for me while I was reading "So Long, Insecurity" by Beth Moore.

We live our lives screaming, "Somebody notice me!" And do you want to hear something interesting? That's exactly how God made us. That very need is built into our human hard drive to send us on a search for our Creator, who can assign us more significance than we can handle. He not only notices us, He never takes His eyes off us. Every now and then a moment of clarity hits us, and we feel known by something--Someone--of inestimable greatness. (192)

Now read what the psalmist says in Psalms 139:1-17 and experience one of those moments:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

¹³ For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.^[a]
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!

So go now in peace my friend knowing the God that created you notices you, watches over you, and walks with you so you never have to be alone.

-Jordyn