Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24; John 3:16

We all want to make a place in this world
We all want our voices to be heard
Everyone wants a chance to be someone
We all have dreams we need to dream
Sweeter than any star you can reach
Is when you reach and find you found someone
You’ll hold this world’s most precious thing
The greatest gift this life can bring
Is when you look back and know you were love 

You were loved by someone, touched by someone,
Held by someone, meant something to someone
Loved somebody, touched somebody’s heart along the way
You can look back and say you were loved

You can have diamonds in the hands
Have all the riches in the land
But without love you don’t really have a thing
When somebody cares that you’re alive
When somebody trusts you with their life
That’s when you know that you have all you need
You hold this world’s most priceless gift
The finest treasure that there is
You can look back and know you were loved

Psychologists would all agree that one of the most basic needs of a human being is to be loved.  We all need to feel loved by someone.  An article in Psychology Today had these words:  “All of us have an intense desire to be loved and nurtured.  The need to be loved, as experiments by Bowlby and others have shown, could be considered one of our most basic and fundamental needs. One of the forms that this need takes is contact comfort – the desire to be held and touched.  Findings show that babies who are deprived contact comfort, particularly during the first six months after they are born, grow up to be psychologically damaged.”  The need to be loved is not something to be taken lightly; love is essential to our well-being.

Along with the need to be loved is the need to be known, fully known as we are, and accepted as we are, loved as we are.  But it is really scary to let anyone know us fully, completely, warts and all.  We tend to hide those parts of us that we feel are unlovely and unlovable.  Maybe we snore.  Or maybe we have the compulsion to separate our socks by whites and colors in the drawer.  Or perhaps we are grumpy in the morning.  Or maybe it’s more serious; maybe there is something we have done in the past that we are ashamed of, something we feel guilty about.  Maybe we hold a grudge that we just can’t quite decide to let go of.  Or maybe we were unkind to someone who needed a friend.  But whatever the reason, we tend to protect or hide parts of ourselves for fear of being rejected.

But what if I were to tell you that there is someone who knows everything – everything – about us, down to the last little nitty gritty detail, and that someone loves us unconditionally.  That person knows and accepts us as we are and cares about us deeply with a love that will never end.  You know who I’m talking about; that person is God.

One of the most consistent messages throughout the Bible – Old and New Testaments – is that God loves us with an everlasting love, a love that cannot be scared off or offended so much that it just leaves.  And here in Psalm 139, we are reminded that the God who offers that unconditional love knows us in minute detail. 

God has searched us and knows us.  That thought might be uncomfortable.  Or it might be comforting.  God not only looks at us, he searches us; he looks into all the nooks and crannies of our being.  God knows our hearts and tests our thoughts, and still offers us love, no matter what he finds there.

God knows all about what we do.  God knows when we sit down and when we get up.  God discerns all our thoughts.  (God might get bored with some of my ponderings.)  God knows where we go and when we lie down.  God is familiar with all our ways and God even knows what we are going to say before we say it.  There is no one else in the universe who knows us this thoroughly and completely.  To think that God is that interested in us is very humbling.  And very uplifting.

The Psalmist considers whether there is anywhere he can go that God is not there, and he has to admit that there is no place God will not be.  In heaven above or the depths below, God is there.  On the farthest limits of the sea, God is there.  Even in the darkness, God is there, and the dark isn’t dark to God.  God is everywhere; God is with us wherever we are.  Do you feel God’s presence with you?  Are you aware of God as you go about your daily tasks?  Have you sometimes become aware of God in places you least expect to find him?

And the God who knows us and goes with us also loves us.  When we are good, God loves us.  When we are not so good, God loves us.  When we are extending kindness to others, God loves us, and God even loves us when we are being rude.  God loves us when we love him, and God loves us when we turn our backs on him and journey to a far country, and he waits patiently for us to come home.

That first Bible verse we all memorized is still the most important:  John 3:16: God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.  Jesus was the gift of love God gave to the world.  Jesus came to show us what God is like and to show us what we should be like.  Jesus offered us grace and salvation, and a way of living that models the kingdom of God in this world.  God did not spare anything, but gave up the most precious thing, his Son, for our good.  That is an incredibly powerful and deep love.

So no matter who we are or where we are or what we’ve done or what we’ve left undone, we can know that we have a God who knows us perfectly and still loves us unconditionally with an everlasting love.  We can be sure that God’s love will surround us today and every day until we stand in his presence and bask in his love and light forever.

In the quiet, love is reaching
It’s yours to hold, be still and know that
Even when you’re lost and lonely
And hope is gone, you’re not alone
Far beyond the understanding
There’s a hand that leads if you believe
Through the darkness, see the light
Remember God loves you 

The road ahead is long and winding
With eyes of faith, you’ll find the way, yeah
And when the journey leaves you weary
You can rest in the comfort of Heaven’s arms
Sweet loving arms
And peace will follow
Peace be with you always as you go
For now you know that
Through the darkness, there’s a light
Remember God loves you