BaptistWay Bible Series for June 6: Knowing God in daily life

The eternity of God (Psalm 139:1-12)

God knows no limits. God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnitemporal—we combine these ideas and join with Scripture in calling God “eternal.” God has no beginning, no end, no limit.

The psalmist focuses first on the omniscience of God. God knows our thoughts (v. 2). God knows our words before we do (v. 4). God’s knowledge is far beyond what we can imagine (v. 6). The Apostle Paul reminds us that God’s plan for us is immeasurably more than we can imagine (Ephesians 3:20)—and that is saying something, because we can imagine quite a lot.

The psalmist then turns to God’s omnipresence. We can go nowhere God is not (v. 7). Whether we try heaven (v. 8), Sheol (v. 8), the place where the dawn first appears (v. 9), the far side of the sea (v. 9) or the darkest place we can find (vv. 11-12), God already is there.

God is omnipotent. God is creator and sustainer. Nothing is impossible for God (Genesis 18:14; Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37; Jeremiah 32:17; Psalm 115:3).

God is omnitemporal. As the creator of time, God stands outside of time. That is hard for us to understand, especially since both the Bible and our own experience teach us that God routinely steps into our time line and interacts with us.

Perhaps a way to think of it is to picture a river. If you are on a boat on that river, you can see a certain ways ahead and a certain distance behind, but the bends in the river and, ultimately, the horizon prevent you from seeing the whole river at once.

If, on the other hand, you were in a hot air balloon at a sufficient height, you could look down and see the entire river at once. You would be outside its boundaries and able to see all of it at once.

So too, God is not encumbered by time as we know it. God is outside of time.  Statements like “Did God know this would happen before it happened?” don’t make sense in God’s sphere, for words like “before” assume human time. The biblical word for this omnitemporality of God is “eternal” (Genesis 21:33; Deuteronomy 33:27; Isaiah 26:4; Habakkuk 3:6; Romans 1:20; 1 Timothy 1:17). God’s eternity makes the gift of eternal life realistic (Romans 6:23).

Submission to the eternity of God (Psalm 139:23-24)

Everything we have said in the first section is an interesting study that never goes beyond the intellectual unless we understand the petitions at the end of the psalm. What difference does the eternity of God make to us? Too many of us give lip service—and even intellectual assent—to the omniscience and omnipresence of God without living as if God’s eternity makes any difference. Too often we acknowledge God’s omnipotence without once asking God to make any significant changes in our lives or our motivations, without really believing God is powerful enough to change our hearts and make us better than we would otherwise be.

The psalmist calls upon the power and knowledge of God, opening himself up to God’s unfathomable knowledge (Romans 11:33-34). If we are to live as if our faith matters, we have to start by recognizing and calling upon the eternity of God. If God knows my thoughts before I do (vv. 2-4), shouldn’t I ask God to reveal them to me and to change them (v. 23)? If I cannot escape an omnipotent God, am I better off to ignore or to rely on that power? The psalmist lays himself bare and asks God to isolate any wicked way and to change him, setting him on the “way everlasting” (v. 24).

This prayer must follow the understanding of the nature of God. What difference does it make in our lives that God has all these characteristics if we are not changed because of them? Living a life of faith is a commitment—a giving over—of our life into the hands of the one who can change it.

Recognizing that we are limited (Proverbs 3:5-6)

We would be hard pressed to find any Old Testament verses more memorized, more quoted, and more beloved than these. We also would be hard pressed to mean them most of the time we recite them.

Saying we trust God is expected and commonplace in our churches. Actually choosing not to lean on our own understanding is rare. The reason is simple—we are creatures of control. We desperately strive to understand everything we can about God. It is why we go to Sunday school and Bible studies and conferences. It is why we analyze the lyrics of the songs we sing and hear. It often is why we pray, asking God to make his will clear to us.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with Bible study and Christian music. Of course, we are to pray for illumination from the Father.

At the end of the day, though, we must not lean on our own understanding. Even when we do understand, our understanding is not complete; far more often, we have no conception of the truth. Remember, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” Our minds cannot conceive what is going on in God’s mind, so we should not try. Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has any human mind even conceived what God has in store (1 Corinthians 2:9; Isaiah 64:4).

These verses certainly are applicable to those who are lost, who need God to direct their paths because they otherwise would run to the prodigal son’s pigsty.  

These verses also, however, apply to all of us who are walking well with God, who have studied and prayed and followed Christ as best we know how. The call not to lean on our own understanding is not so much an indictment of our shallow minds as it is a recognition of the eternity of God. The writer of Proverbs knows the truth of Psalm 139—if we have a God like that who asks for our trust, why would we choose our own understanding?

In all your ways, acknowledge God.