Psalm 139

I'm going to revive this section of my site by taking a slightly different turn. For a short time I was doing my weekly homegroup Bible Studies on here, on the theory that it is no harder to do them here than with paper and pencil, but for a variety of reasons I decided to go back to paper and pencil after all. Now I would like to just mention things I've learned from Bible studies I attend, sermons I've listened to, or from my own time in God's Word.

For our College/Career Group Bible study this past Saturday night, we studied Psalm 139, especially as it pertains to God's will. I had first read it in the NASB, which is a more literal translation, kind of like the King James but in modern English, and verse 12 said "darkness and light are alike to you". This confused me a little, but as we studied it it became clear that it just means we can't hide from God, he can see in darkness just as well as in light. The NIV, which is what I have linked to here, gets a little interpretive as it often does and says, quite accurately I think, "...for darkness is as light to you". John 3:19-21 tells us a bit about how we try to hide from God. This psalm reminds us how futile this is. It makes me think of a kid covering his eyes thinking that by doing that no one can see him. When we sin and try to hide from God, we're sort of doing the same thing.