Fully Known and Not Abandoned: The Responsibility in the Room

The elder minutes still have last month's God-already-knows sentence. Fully known sits on the packet, on the hospital card the chair signs, and on the last line of a visit that never occupied air this table had to keep together. Tuesday still sends a named household home with a private truth the chairs already possess and still treat as indoor furniture nobody at this table has to sit with in the same week.

A man two chairs down already received the public version of this oversight. The public version can quote the psalm. The public version can leave a casserole. The public version still treats a named hiddenness as indoor furniture the chairs are not allowed to occupy. If you preach Psalm 139 as a pep talk about self-worth, you will lie. If you preach it as a threat the shepherds can use, you will send already-exposed people home more afraid of the table than of the Lord. Preach it as prayer-poetry: the God who already knows you has not abandoned you. Then name what that refuge is supposed to do to the chairs this week.

Text

Hear Psalm 139:1-18, from the World English Bible: "Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it.