Current Location

When you put an address into your favorite mapping software, you should get a clear picture of your desired destination, but if you want to go there, you’ll need to provide your current location. Fortunately (or maybe not), our “smart” devices frequently know where we are even when we do not! It’s difficult to chart a course if you do not know where you are beginning the journey. A journey to intimacy with God begins with an awareness of our current spiritual location. Often, we approach prayer as an opportunity to tell God where we want to go, without the slightest idea of where we are. Join us for part one of the three-part series, “Prayer Journey,” in which we will learn the importance of deep, reflective prayer and how only God can show us our current location.

Reading Scripture

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

¹³ For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.

¹⁹ Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
    O men of blood, depart from me!
²⁰ They speak against you with malicious intent;
    your enemies take your name in vain.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
²² I hate them with complete hatred;
    I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139

Reflective prayer is an invitation for God to search my heart and test my thoughts.

God knows everything about me.

1. I can deceive myself, but I cannot deceive God (Psalm 139:1-5)
2. I can run, but I cannot hide (Psalm 139:7-12)
3. I can deny God, but my very existence is evidence of Him. (Psalm 139:13-16)

I do not and cannot know myself as God knows me. (Psalm 139:6, 18-22; Jeremiah 17:9-10; 2 Corinthians 10:5)

Only by knowing God can I truly understand myself. (Psalm 139:23-24)