The Sense of time passing faster only increases the older you get. An aging actor was once asked by an interviewer, “What’s it like to get old?” He replied, “you eat breakfast every half hour.” When I first heard that, I thought he meant that he ate a lot. Then I realized he meant that it seems like morning comes every thirty minutes. I’m beginning to experience that now. Apparently, when you’re “over the hill,” you pick up speed.
I love the Book of Psalms, and Psalm 139 is one of my favorites. I’m 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 from the very beginning of your existence, even before your birth.
The Second phrase is a little confusing. Notice that several words 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 really 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.
That seems even more confusing, until you learn that the Hebrew word for continuance is yom, which means “day.” Suddenly we realized 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 for the NIV has stuck in my mind. I’ve thought of it frequently and quoted if often. There is immense comfort in this verse.
God has written all of our days in His book: the first one, the last one, and every day in between. God is using the imagery of an author writing a story to communicate something wonderful: 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” certain days for us in the way He did. In fact, if we were the ones doing the writing, we’d have written some of our days quite 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 allow distrust, anger and bitterness to poison our souls.
This isn’t easy to do. In fact, sometimes it’s very hard. This is why the Bible says, “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, it’s 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. 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, and we will be held accountable for them. 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?” Let me tell you: I don’t have the faintest idea. But then, I don’t understand the computer in my car, my laptop, my smart phone, my smart watch, or the doorbell at the back of the church, either. If human beings can come up with stuff I can’t understand, then it makes sense to me that there are things about God I won’t understand, either.
Here’s the bottom line: There isn’t some blind, pitiless, uncaring fate behind the circumstances of our lives. Rather, behind our days there is a loving Heavenly Father, who is so good, and so holy, and is love personified. And He has promised to make good come out of even all the bad things that happen to His children.
God has done this before, on that horrible day when His only Son, Jesus Christ, was crucified. And then on the third day after, He raised Jesus from the dead. And He explained to us what this 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 all that so that you can come to God, and know that He isn’t angry with you, and that all your sins can be forgiven. You can say to the Father, “I want what Jesus did on the cross to count for me!” And then He will forgive you, and then you can know that you are His child, and that He is your “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.
There’s an old Latin phrase that used to be used in the church: “Coram Deo.” It means, “before the face of God.” That’show we live all our days: before the face and under the watchful gaze of our Heavenly Father.
Isn’t that comforting? Here’s another Latin phrase in response:
Soli Deo Gloria! (To God alone be the glory!)
Pastor David