Thought for the Day 11/8/2024

 Friday Tale - You Search out my Path 

I remember searchlights as a boy. Beams of light would sweep across the sky from near where I lived. They were searching for enemy planes, if they found one they would lock on to it and the gunners would try to shoot it down. My wife Fran had gunners right near her house.

           We were reminded of this by our reading of Psalm 139 today. “Oh LORD you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up … you search out my path” [v. 1-3]. But David realizes that God’s power to “see” extends far beyond what we do physically. We read, “you discern my thoughts from afar … even before a word is on my tongue …” [v.4]  

           In the language young people use today, they would describe as ‘awesome’ the thought that God knows our thoughts before we even put them into words. That really is a searchlight on the mind. We cannot limit the meaning to David personally.

           BUT there is even more than this in what David writes, it is a wonderful inspiration from God! We read, “For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made … your eyes saw my unformed substance.” [v.13,14,16].

           Today, clever men have unraveled some of the secrets of DNA and the human genome. How remarkable that David was inspired to write this 3,000 years ago.

           Finally, the word ‘SEARCH’ occurs again at the climax of the Psalm, Search me O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts … and lead me in the way everlasting.” [v.23,24]   

           Would I, would you, want to sense God’s searchlight on your thoughts? If the answer is “No” – then should it not also be ‘No’ - to the question as to whether we want to led by God in the way everlasting? 

~ David Caudery

 What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

~ Luke 15: 4- 7