Psalm 139:1-5 O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up [my entire life, everything I do]; You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and You are intimately acquainted with all my ways…

139:1-6 God’s omniscience and omnipresence are truths recognized by many, yet not fully believed. He observes every step we take, knowing our motives and thoughts, even in solitude. Every word we speak is understood by Him, along with its intent. We are always under God’s watchful eye, and these truths should encourage us to refrain from sin. Bible Hub

Unhiding: Facing Secrets with God’s Light

Everyone has a secret of one sort or another. Every family, community, and country has its secrets too. For some, it manifests as addictive behavior. For others, it involves an abusive or traumatic experience that may intensify feelings of shame. For still others, it can take the form of fear of rejection, lust for power, uncontrollable temper, emotional infidelity, vicious prejudice, a program of terror, insatiable jealousy, repeated acts of self-indulgence, or something else.

Whatever they may be, with our secrets we hide. We hide from others, and we hide from ourselves. Ultimately, we hide from God. In our hiding, we choose darkness over light; we embrace death instead of life; we elect to be lonely rather than to be relationally at home with others. And the certain result of all our hiding is that we become cut off from our Source of life, strangers to ourselves, and alienated from creation, which, in the end, is pathetic, disfiguring, and an utterly tragic loss of life.

To be open and unafraid with God is to counter the devastating effects of our primordial sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, their first impulse was to hide. In making clothes for themselves, they hid their bodies. When they heard the sound of their Maker’s voice, they hid from God. In their telltale lies, they hid from the truth, and in their mutual accusations, they hid from each other. All that Adam and Eve hid resulted in one thing: their dehumanization. . . .

What the psalms offer us is help to unhide: to stand honestly before God without fear, to face one another vulnerably without shame, and to encounter life in the world without any of the secrets that would demean and distort our humanity. The psalms invite us, therefore, to stand in the light, to see ourselves truly and to receive the reformative work of God through the formative words of the psalmist, so that we might be rehumanized in Christ. 

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.