593_Search me and try me, O Lord (Psalm 139)

Psalm 139 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.
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!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

There is a story often told about a restorer who was once invited to examine a priceless painting that had hung for decades in a dimly lit wall. To the casual observer, it looked fine—serene, even beautiful. But when the restorer brought a bright light and held it close, the room fell silent. Cracks appeared where none were noticed before. Layers of dirt dulled the colors. Tiny repairs made years earlier, meant to hide flaws, were suddenly obvious. The light did not damage the painting; it revealed its true condition so that it could be restored to its intended glory. That is very much the spirit of Psalm 139. David dares to step into the searching light of God and, rather than shrinking back, he prays, “Search me and try me, O Lord.” This psalm is not a theological essay written at a distance, but a deeply personal introspection before an all-knowing God, an honest soul standing exposed and unafraid in the presence of divine light.

Psalm 139 is one of the sweetest and most profound compositions from the pen of David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. It opens with a simple yet staggering confession: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.” David does not begin by telling God who he is; he begins by acknowledging that God already knows. Those words may well have carried echoes from a defining moment early in his life, when the prophet Samuel came to Jesse’s house to anoint the next king of Israel. Samuel, impressed by Eliab’s stature, assumed the firstborn must be the Lord’s chosen. But God gently corrected him: “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” One by one, Jesse’s sons passed before Samuel, and one by one they were rejected. Finally, the youngest was summoned from the fields, a shepherd boy deemed suitable only to tend sheep. Yet God said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” What no one else could see, God had already searched and known. David lived his entire life with that awareness: the Lord who chose him had seen beyond appearances and into the depths of his heart.

As the psalm unfolds, David reflects on the extent of God’s knowledge about him. God knows the rhythms and timings of his life—when he sits down and when he rises up. We ourselves often forget the details of our days, the precise moments when decisions were made or paths were altered, but God remembers them all. More than that, David says, God discerns his thoughts from afar. Before an idea is fully formed, before a motive is clearly understood even by David himself, it is already laid bare before God. Years later, as David handed over instructions to his son Solomon for the building of the temple, he articulated this truth with pastoral urgency: “The Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.” David had lived long enough to know how easily the heart can deceive itself, and how necessary it is to live honestly before a God who cannot be fooled.

God knows my heart, my ways, my words, and every step I take. Even before a word is on my tongue, David says, God knows it completely. Faced with such comprehensive knowledge, David is overwhelmed, not threatened. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” This is not the cry of a man crushed by scrutiny, but the awe-filled response of someone who realizes he is fully known and yet still loved. What can anyone hide before such an all-knowing God? The question lingers in the air, not to induce fear, but to invite honesty.

From knowledge, David moves naturally to presence. In verses 7 to 12, he speaks of God’s omnipresence. There is nowhere he can go to escape God’s Spirit. If he ascends to heaven, God is there. If he makes his bed in the depths, God is there. If he takes the wings of the morning and dwells at the farthest limits of the sea, even there God’s hand will lead him. Darkness, often our last refuge for secrecy, offers no cover. “Even the darkness is not dark to you,” David confesses. For someone who had known both the heights of victory and the depths of moral failure, this truth carried weight. There is no use running away from God. The God who searches us is also the God who surrounds us, before and behind, laying his hand upon us.

David then turns inward, marveling at God’s intimate knowledge of his very body. God is not only aware of David’s actions and thoughts; he is the one who formed him. “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb,” David writes. His response is spontaneous praise: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The Hebrew word translated “wonderfully” carries the sense of being set apart, distinct, and unique. In a world that constantly urges us to measure ourselves against others, to copy idols and chase borrowed identities, this truth is deeply liberating. If God formed me intentionally and uniquely, then endless comparison is not only exhausting but meaningless. I am not called to be a better version of someone else; I am called to live faithfully within God’s design for me. When David considers the human body—its complexity, its delicacy, its resilience—he sees the genius of the Creator at work, and praise is the only fitting response.

God’s knowledge extends even to David’s unformed days. Before one of them came to be, all were written in God’s book. This does not lead David into fatalism but into wonder. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” God knows David completely, inside and out, past, present, and future, and yet his thoughts toward David are countless and precious. Often, we imagine God as distant, overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe and the endless needs of humanity. But David insists that God’s thoughts about us far exceed our thoughts about him. He is intimately concerned with our well-being and our future. As Isaiah later declared, God’s thoughts are higher than ours, not colder or more detached, but richer, deeper, and more purposeful.

The psalm then takes a surprising turn. In verses 19 to 22, David expresses strong words about the wicked, aligning himself with God’s hatred of evil. These are not petty personal grudges but a moral revulsion toward those who oppose God with malicious intent, who misuse his name and plan violence. David’s words remind us that to invite God’s searching light is also to ask for our loyalties to be clarified. To love God is, in some sense, to hate what destroys what God loves. Even here, however, David’s passion drives him back toward self-examination rather than self-righteousness.

The psalm ends where it truly began—with prayer. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” David had already acknowledged that God had searched and known him, yet he asks God to do it again. It is as if he is saying, “Do not stop at the surface. Shine your light into every corner.” Like someone carefully inspecting a dark room with a torch, David invites God to expose any “grievous way” within him and then to lead him in the everlasting way. This is not a prayer of despair but of trust. David believes that the God who searches is also the God who leads.

This closing prayer is one we desperately need to recover in our daily lives. There are layers within us that remain hidden not only from others but from ourselves. The prophet Jeremiah was brutally honest about the human condition: “The heart is deceitful above all things.” Left to ourselves, we are poor judges of our own motives. But the Lord says, “I search the heart and test the mind.” To pray Psalm 139 is to surrender our self-deception and invite divine truth.

The practical application is both simple and demanding. To pray “Search me and try me, O Lord” is to slow down enough to be honest before God. It means resisting the urge to justify ourselves too quickly and allowing God’s Word and Spirit to examine our attitudes, our private thoughts, our unspoken resentments, and our hidden fears. It means trusting that whatever God reveals, he does so not to shame us but to heal us, not to discard us but to lead us in the way everlasting. This prayer can become a daily discipline—spoken at the start of the day, whispered before decisions, returned to at night in quiet reflection. As we consistently place ourselves under God’s searching light, we will find, like David, that being fully known by God is not our greatest threat but our deepest comfort.