When our children were little, my wife and I became convicted that we needed to get serious with memorizing Scripture and helping our children to hide God’s Word in their hearts.  We came up with a plan that would get the whole family involved and also would be family bonding time as well.  After a while, we even invited another family to join us and were able to make it a fun–sharing a project that both families so looked forward to.

The plan was to print out the selected passage of Scripture and work on it together as a family at mealtimes.  This morphed into taping verses on walls and mirrors in bedrooms and bathrooms!  We even had a copy in the car so we could work as we drove places. Now the real motivational piece was once everyone in the family could say the passage perfectly from memory, we would gather up and go to a fancy ice cream shop to celebrate!  Our children were always waiting on my wife and me to hurry up and finish memorizing.  When we had finished our memorization, we would say that passage together as a family outside the shop and walk in with excitement and satisfaction as we ordered whatever we wanted to celebrate!  It was exponentially exciting when two families totaling 13 people were quoting the Bible outside a delectable eatery.  I was reminded of this highlight in our family life as I read the first passage from the Bible that we memorized together.  That passage is Psalm 139!

As I regularly read God’s Word, it is so amazing to me that these words of truth are so profound for living life in the world today.  One of the most potent passages of Scripture that screams out forgotten truth to today’s human being is Psalm 139!  As we read this Psalm together I want you to look for a few things that God says through David’s pen regarding God’s relationship with us.  Observe God’s intentionality in creating you.  Remember God has a plan for you personally before you were even born.  Think about how God’s Spirit is with us even when we are unaware or rebelling against Him.  Also, notice how God’s thoughts are so much greater than our thoughts!   How could we have the audacity to rebuff the words of the Creator of the world?

Psalm 139:1–24

¹  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!

As a father and now grandfather, I want my children to know that they are precious in God’s sight and He created them just as He intended!  They are not a mistake!  With each of us, there are strengths and weaknesses or challenges that we possess.  God has made us just as He has for His purposes and for His glory.  We are to be faithful to Him and look for how God chooses to use us.  We need to refuse the mindset where we present our plans for our life to God and ask Him to bless our plans.  The clay pot does not tell the potter, “Um, you made a mistake.  I am not supposed to be this way.”  Neither are we to argue with God as to the way He has made us, rather seek to understand how He desires to use us in His determinations.  I want my grandchildren to have a proper view of God and their relationship with Him.  I desire them to be grateful for God granting them life regardless if that life meets their own expectations.  My hope is that my children will ask the Lord to search their hearts and reveal if there are any grievous ways in them and to not leave them in that state but rather prepare them for life everlasting.  My heart’s desire is right along with the Apostle John in III John 4, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”