Reflections and Meditations on Psalm 139:1-6
Part II: My Sitting and My Rising “You know my sitting down and my rising up.” -Psalm 139:2a
As we reflect on Psalm 139:2a we’ll take a slightly different approach then we did in v.1. We’ll not make our primary interpretive lens the Hebrew of the Old Testament. Instead, well extend the meaning to include the glorious gospel of grace marvelously interwoven through its ancient pages. Verse one instructed us that God is indeed a personal God who has acquired His knowledge of us by way of proximity -an intentional nearness.
And David has informed us that because God is near, He knows. But what is it that He knows? Here David begins to identify seven specific categories of the knowledge of God concerning His children. God knows our sitting down and our rising up. In the most generic sense the verbs sitting and rising indicate periods of activity and inactivity. One sits and rests from one’s labors. One rises and prepares to engage in one’s labors. But there is a very real sense in which we engage with the grace of God as one who partners with God in both the rest and the risk of faith.
The Song of Solomon paints a poetic narrative in which the celebrated beauties of married love give way to a theology of the love of a bridegroom God toward His bridal people. “I have taken off my robe; How can I put it on again? I have washed my feet; How can I defile them?” -Song 5:3. In this most sincere question toward her bridegroom the bride asks essentially, “Now that I’ve learned to wait for your voice and to trust in your leadership, how can I ever return to the clumsy way in which I used to follow you?” In the early period of her walk with Christ He had invited her to leave the familiarity and comfort of her current season (Song.2:3-7) and follow Him to into the unknown (Song.2:10-14). She refused. However, experiencing the deep pain of her rejection of Him she does eventually venture out into the night and having returned comforted by His presence she again reclines into the warm embrace of confident love (Song.5:3).
Comforted by the stark awareness of God’s love for her and the very real sense of His approval over her obedient life she rests in His grace. Easily she receives His affections and celebrates the wisdom of His sure leadership as He has once again brought her into the fold of the revelation of His beauty and His affections for her. In this season she finds it effortless to believe that He loves and favors her. I see this theme woven into David’s declaration that God knows his sitting down. He is quite aware that David has found a home in the revelation of His grace which magnifies the pleasure of God over his life. In great contrast, God is also intimately familiar with the seasons of our rising up to leave the place of familiarity in order to obey the voice of God as He beckons us into the risk of the night season. Such seasons are often fraught with adversaries, troubles, and the call to die, however painfully, to the power of our flesh. In such a season, the apostle Paul, with great maturity, trumpets the voice of one who is himself being stripped of his dependency on the flesh.
“ “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” ”
Continuing on with our blueprint from the Song of Solomon the bride chooses to rise from her resting place and follow her beloved into a season of obedience defined by myrrh and the absence of the sense of God’s presence (Song.5:5-6a). In the ancient world myrrh was used as a burial spice and now speaks to us in 3 metaphor regarding a death to our own way of doing things. As the bride leaves behind all that has become familiar to her in the last season, she embarks on a journey to trust God with her heart and her actions. Let me explain.
In the example of our first season the bride is resting in God’s approval because she has recently gained ground by overcoming adversity in her spiritual life -adversity which she had formerly failed to overcome (Song.2:14-17). God comforts and celebrates her victories by releasing the sense of His presence as He affirms her choices and developing maturity. She now knows how He feels about her and finds it easy to accept His love in light of her recent obedience (Song.4:6-15). But in this next season her devotion to Christ will be tested. She is asked to leave the safety of her current circumstances and to willingly venture out into the night where the sense of His presence is lifted and the familiarity with His affections for her will challenged.
Her pledge to His leadership will be tested in the valley of trial and as she struggles -so will her perception of God’s love and commitment as she ventures far from the safety of the last season. God sees our rising. He knows the risk of faith. When, like Peter, He calls us out from the safety of the boat to venture out upon the water -to run in the darkness of the night into the unfamiliar trappings of mountaintype obstacles. He is our champion. He understands the pain and perplexity we experience as we choose to risk in order to honor our commitment to love Him. He sees and understands the cost in light of the command to lose our life for His sake that we might find it in the end. God notices and rejoices in our sitting and our rising up. He affirms His love for us as we rest in His grace - confident in His love and satisfied with His provision. He calls, draws, and champions us as He recognizes our small steps of willingness to embrace the seasons of uncertainty in order that we night find Him and join Him in His labors.
