About the Hymn
In this intensely personal psalm, David sings of the omniscience and power of God. The hymn text attempts to capture that intimacy by retaining the personal pronoun and the confidential tone. The result is a reverie that is part praise and part confession, part humble awe and part confident trust.
Stanza 1 confesses that the all-knowing God sees every corner of our hearts and minds. God knows us better than we know ourselves. A reading through the lens of the law might evoke a sense of foreboding: “I can’t pretend to be holy! God knows my secrets!” A reading through the lens of the gospel, however, evokes a sense of comfort: “I am not invisible. My God knows me through and through and, through Christ, loves me in spite of my fallen nature.”
Stanza 2 continues the theme of omniscience, adding the idea of omnipotence, especially as it relates to God’s creation of my human form. The all-powerful God “knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Every child, born and unborn, is “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and God has plans for each child, noting the length of life in the “book of days and years.”
Stanza 3 expands the themes of omniscience and omnipotence to include also God’s omnipresence: “I cannot escape God.” The sinner in me would perhaps like to escape God’s demand for holiness and wrath at my failures. The saint I am in Christ would never attempt to escape God’s presence, for it’s there that I am safest. This stanza closes with a statement of David that is simple but profoundly elegant: “When I wake—whether from nightly sleep or the sleep of death—I am still with you.”
The hymn should be performed at a resolute ♪ = ca. 108.
Text
1. You search, O God, the reaches of my heart;
you see what all my dreams and secrets are.
You know before I leave what road I’ll take;
you know before I speak what I will say.
I cannot hide behind a proud façade;
the me behind the mask you see, O God.
2. You knit me cell by cell from spark of life,
compelled my heart to beat, my voice to cry.
You shaped and sculpted me, your work of art;
you made me wonderful in ev’ry part.
And then within your book of days and years,
you wrote the number of my summers here.
3. And if I dare to settle ‘cross the sea,
you’ll find me there, your loving eye on me;
and if I stray into the dang’rous night,
you’ll find me there, for in you dark is light.
My eyes one day will close to skies of blue,
and when I wake, I’ll find I’m still with you.
© 2018 Laurie F. Gauger
Lectionary Reading
Year B, Second Sunday after the Epiphany: Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18
Year B, Season after Pentecost, Proper 4 (9): Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18
Year C, Season after Pentecost, Proper 18 (23): Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
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.
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, 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.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
