I woke up this morning with this verse in my head.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

The Lord knows me well.

I am thrilled.

Terrified.

Excited.

Anxious.

Confident.

Concerned.

Faithful.

Faithless.

Sometimes all at the same time.  I am a woman – made by God.  Creative and imaginative.  Which I have found can be an incredibly positive thing, or can mean I anticipate every possible negative scenario.  So this morning the Lord led me to Psalm 139.

O LORD, you have searched me 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 know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in—behind and before;  you have laid your hand upon me. (Isn’t that fantastic?  I love that picture).

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;  the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

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, O 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.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!  Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent;  your adversaries misuse your name.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them;  I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;  test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,  and lead me in the way everlasting.

There is a possibility on our horizon. Little more than a speck at this point, but that speck could turn into a great promise.  And I really have been asking the Lord if He would open this door for us – in my human understanding it seems the perfect scenario.  I sent a prayer request to some women in my life who I trust and who pray for our family.  One of the women wrote back and told me to begin to thank the Lord for this thing in faith.  I read that and thought, “Really Lord, it wouldn’t be presumptive to do that?  I could just thank you, in faith, for this thing?”

So I did, in my brown chair in my living room.  I thanked the Lord.  When I thanked Him I felt shivers from my head to my toes.  This weight seemed to lift off my shoulders.  It was a pretty powerful moment – I began to cry.  I can’t really explain the physical feeling of letting go of the hope of this thing and instead thanking the Lord for it.

One of the things I wrote these women who are praying for me is that I wanted to be careful that my hope was in the Lord, and not on this one thing.  I wanted to be able to say that God is good regardless.  So I know that the idea of thanking Him WAY in advance of Him actually giving us a thing seems contrary to that.  But I don’t think it is.  I think I was offering to the Lord the little faith I had.

In Matthew 17, Jesus takes three disciples up onto a mountain.  There, the glory of Jesus is revealed. They see Moses and Elijah and hear the voice of God.  As they come back down, they ask Jesus some questions.  You can tell that they are struggling to wrap their finite minds around the infinite nature of God.  Later, a man comes to Jesus to get healing for his son.  He tells Jesus that the disciples were unable to heal him.  With a word, Jesus heals the son.  The disciples ask Jesus why it was so simple for Him when they couldn’t help the boy.  Jesus replies, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

I think, sitting in my chair in my house, I offered up to God my little mustard seed of faith.  I think that physical reaction I experienced was a bit like stepping out of the boat to walk on water.  For a moment, I did something supernatural.  It wasn’t much – but it was all I had.

Jesus could have left the boy unhealed – to teach the disciples a lesson.  Sometimes we see God that way, right?  We think if we don’t have the faith, He might punish us and not give us the thing we need/want.  But Jesus isn’t like that.  He understands and He helps us in our weakness.

I am thankful that Jesus walked among us in our skin.  That his 11 closest friends were human.  So He gets it.  He understands that our minds cannot comprehend even a small percentage of His plan.   These disciples SAW the glory of Jesus, heard the voice of God, saw two men long dead alive and glowing.  And yet Jesus said their faith was still too small.  So this passage in Psalm 139 talks about God knowing us completely – every day, every thought, every word – but also loving us completely.  In fact, it seems to indicate that He compensates for our weaknesses.  We are hemmed in before and behind.  I visualize two huge shields covering me as I ball up into the fetal position.  Or a parent covering over the entire body of a child in an emergency.  Yes I am weak, but I am not the important part of this picture.  I am safe.  Protected.  Fought for.  And someone much larger and more powerful is in control.

So this morning I am grateful that I am hemmed in, before and behind.  I am enveloped in the love and grace of my Father.  And He knows my days.  I have done my share of the mountain moving.  I rest knowing it is now up to Him.