Once again we’re on the threshold of another new year. The sense of time passing faster only increases the older you get. An aging actor was once asked by an interviewer, “What is it like to get old?” He replied, “You eat breakfast every half hour.” When I first heard that, I thought he meant, he ate a lot. Then I realized he meant that it seems like morning comes every thirty minutes. I’m beginning to understand that.
I love the Book of Psalms, and Psalm 139 is one of my favorites. I am especially drawn to verse 16. The King James Version renders it this way:
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
The first phrase refers to our growth in the womb. The Hebrew word for substance was used to refer to “the body”. Unperfect means “unformed” or “unfinished”. The idea is that God was watching over you in His providential care from the very beginning of your existence, even before your birth.
The second phrase is a little confusing. Notice that several words are in italics. These are words that are not in the Hebrew text of the Bible. The King James translators supplied those words in order to aid our understanding. The problem is, they jumped to a conclusion that the Hebrew text doesn’t necessarily support. Based on the first phrase, they concluded that the word all referred to “all of the body”, or all the body’s parts or members. But the Hebrew words can be understood more simply and literally.
Here is the King James text without the added words:
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all… were written, …in continuance were fashioned, when… none of them.
Now that seems even more confusing, until you learn that the Hebrew word for continuance is yom, which means “day”. Suddenly we realize that, after the first phrase, the psalmist isn’t talking about the body’s members, he’s talking about the body’s days. In other words, all the days you live in your body.
This is why modern translations render verse 16 differently. What they are really doing is taking out the words that the KJV translators (with all good intentions) added to the text. The English Standard Version gives us a more literal translation, and preserves the poetic form:
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.
But I especially love the way the New International Version puts it:
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
That passage from the NIV has stuck in my mind. I have thought of it frequently, and quoted it often to others. There is immense comfort in this verse.
God has written in His book all of our days, the first one as well as the last, and every day in between. God is using the imagery of an author writing a story to communicate a wonderful truth: there isn’t anything that happens to us that surprises God, or that is outside of His power and control.
Now sometimes we wish that God hadn’t “written down” particular days for us the way He did. In fact, if we were the ones doing the writing, we’d have written some of our days differently. Some of them, we’d have left out entirely.
This is where we have to trust God. We have to trust God; the only other choice is to let distrust, anger and bitterness well up in our souls.
It isn’t easy; in fact, it is very hard. This is why the Bible says that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) Sight is easy; when you can see things, and see why, it’s just easier. But when you can’t see, and especially when you can’t understand why, that is so hard!
And yet, this is what our loving Heavenly Father asks of us. In effect, He is saying: “Trust Me! Wait ‘til I finish the Story! I know you’re hurting now, and I know you’re frightened. But trust Me anyway, and I promise: it’ll be all right in the end.”
This isn’t fatalism. This doesn’t mean that all of our days are preset by God and we don’t make any real choices. The Bible is clear: our choices are real, and have real consequences, for which we will be held accountable to God. You say, “How does that work? How is it that all our days are written down by God, but we are still responsible for our choices and actions?” Well, let me tell you: I haven’t the foggiest. But then, I don’t understand the computer in my car, or the laptop I’m writing this on, either. If human beings can come up with stuff I don’t understand, it makes sense to me that there are things about God I can’t understand, either.
The bottom line is this: behind the circumstances of our lives is not some blind, pitiless, uncaring fate. Rather, behind our days is a loving Heavenly Father, who is good (so good!), and holy,and who is love personified, and who has promised to make good come from all things that happen to His children.
Just like He did on that horrible day when His only Son, Jesus Christ, was crucified. Then, on the third day, He raised Jesus from the dead. And then, He told us what it all meant: ”that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day…”(1 Corinthians 15:3,4).
In other words: He did it all so that we could come to Him, and know that He isn’t angry with us, know all our sins are forgiven because of what Jesus did, and know that we are His children, and He is our “Abba” (literally, “Papa!”… See Romans 8:15).
Take heart, child of God. Hold on to your faith. Trust your Father in Heaven. He has promised that all of your days are under His providential care. Even this one.
Let me change my sign-off phrase again:
Coram Deo! (It means, “before the face of God”. And that’s how we live.)
Pastor David