Daily Worship

I choose, You Choose?

Albert Bogle November 15, 2013 0 0

Psalm 139: 1-24

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,’
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand –
    when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Lord,
Can I help the way I think?
I mean do I think my own thoughts?
You say you know my thoughts
You say you are acquainted with all my ways
Is it true that before i speak 
You know already what I’m going to say?

Lord,
I don’t feel pre-programmed
I want to think and believe
that I think because ‘I am’
I want to believe I’m like you
Made in your image
Reflecting your grace
Your compassion
Your concern 
But always as me,
You created me out of love to love 
You created me out of freedom to be free
You created me out of holiness to be holy

Lord 
Help me to think the way you made me to think
As a free person responding out of gratitude .
Responding to your amazing extravagant generosity
Search my thoughts today Oh Lord,
Check them out 
Out of freedom
Out of freedom
I choose 
Your will not my will to be done.

 

 

Albert Bogle, St Andrew's Church, Bo'ness