There's an insightful little line tucked away in C. S. Lewis’s tale of the founding of Narnia in his book, "The Magician's Nephew." After narrating the story from the perspective of the children that are at the center of the plot, Lewis, the narrator, then tells us that he'll now go back and retell the story of the same events from the perspective of evil Uncle Andrew. And as he sets up this retelling, he makes this observation.

He says, what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you're standing, and it also depends on what sort of person you are. I've often thought about the implications of that line when it comes to our reading of the Bible. What we see and hear depends a great deal on where we're standing and on what kind of people we are. My mind went back to that line when I read the beloved Psalm appointed for the day by the Lectionary—Psalm 139.

This is a psalm that speaks to us in different ways, depending on the seasons or circumstances in which we find ourselves when we come to it. I want us to think together briefly about the theology that emerges from this psalm, what it tells us about God. And then to ask what it might mean to our spiritual lives. To take this theology seriously in the various settings of life in which we find ourselves, Psalm 139 is a richly theological psalm. It tells us a lot about God.

It informs doctrines about God's omniscience and omnipresence—that God is all-knowing and exists everywhere at all times. There is nowhere where God is not. There is no when when God is not. God is omniscient and omnipresent. But David's poem doesn't speak the vocabulary of abstract theology.

Rather, David speaks in deeply personal language. God, you have searched me, you know me. You have laid your hand upon me. You created me.

You think precious thoughts about me. There are three basic theological affirmations that David's poem makes. First, God sees us. God is intimately attentive to the details of our lives, knowing when we lie down, when we rise up. God's eyes always have been and always will be on us.

Second, God knows us. God knows us not merely through observing our lives and our behavior, but because God is the author of our life's story. God knit us together. God created our inmost being. God perceives our thoughts from afar.

And finally, God loves us. As the psalmist says in two different places in the psalm, God's loving hand of care and protection and provision is always upon us. These are the three simple yet profound affirmations that David makes in Psalm 139: God sees, God knows,

God loves. But what might it mean to take these affirmations seriously in the various circumstances that we find ourselves in in life? First, what might it mean in our seasons of chaos? There's the chaos of fractured relationships, anxious uncertainty about the future, mental and emotional burnout, the feeling of being stretched too thin in too many different directions. But that personal chaos is compounded by the chaos we see in the world around us.

We scroll through our newsfeeds and we feel a growing sense of dread—war, injustice, violence, division. When reading through Psalm 139, I couldn't help but think of the image of a child peeking through the rubble in Gaza. I couldn't help but think about the undocumented families within my own congregation, quietly carrying the burden of fear and instability. And in the midst of this chaos, the questions can arise: is anyone paying attention?

Does anyone see this? Does anyone care? And the words of Psalm 139 reach through the noise and say, yes, you have searched me, Lord, you know me.

You discern my going out and my lying down, you hem me in behind and before. This is not a God who is distant and disinterested. This is a God who sees, a God who knows, a God whose loving hand is laid upon us. And it's not just us, but them.

The hurting and the hidden ones in the shadows of the world. God sees the child in the rubble. God knows the undocumented mother living in fear. God loves the refugee, the abandoned, the overlooked. No one is beyond the reach of God's attentive care.

But here's the thing. If we believe this—if we really believe that God sees and knows and loves those caught in the chaos—then we have to ask, what does that mean for me? What does this mean for us? Because those of us who know that they are seen and known and loved by God are called to live as those who see and know and love.

Psalm 139 invites us to rest in the comfort that, even when the world feels out of control, we are held fast by the God who is never far away. And it invites us to join that God in the work of attentive, compassionate presence. In a chaotic world, in the midst of your chaos and the chaos of the world around you, God sees, God knows, God loves. But what about in our moments of shame? The late philosopher and spiritual writer Dallas Willard used to tell the story of a two-and-a-half-year-old little girl named Larissa, playing in the backyard at her grandmother's house.

Her grandmother sat there reading a book with her back to the little girl, and Larissa discovered how she could make mud, which she then referred to as warm chocolate. Now, after a few minutes, the grandmother looked up and discovered the mess that the little girl had made. She's now covered in mud, and so she goes over and she cleans up the mess. And then she tells little Larissa not to make any more chocolate. Then she turns around and goes back to her book, and within a few minutes, Larissa goes back and resumes her warm chocolate production.

Only this time, as she's making a mess yet again, she says, like only a little two-and-a-half-year-old could, don't look at me, Nana, okay. And three times she said it as she continues going about her work, don't look at me, Nana, okay. And Nana, perhaps being just a bit too obliging, agreed and continued reading her book.

Then Willard concludes the story with this observation: thus, the tender soul of a little child shows us how necessary it is to us that we be unobserved in our wrong. Sometimes we want to say, with Job in Job 7:19, will you never look away from me or let me alone, even for an instant? But, according to David in Psalm 139, the answer is no. Verse 7 says,

If I settle on the far side of the sea, you are there. God does not look away, even when we want Him to. But here's the thing about shame: shame tells us lies about things that are true. The truth about me is that I am deeply flawed.

But shame wants me to believe the lie that if God really saw, God really knew—if God really saw and really knew all of my flaws, all of my foibles, all of my failures—then God would find me unlovely and unlovable. Shame tells us lies about things that are true. Yet this poem offers us profound reassurance. The poet tells us that God really does see, that God really does know, and that God really does love. God's grace is gratuitous in ways that defy our imagination.

Romans 8:1 tells us.

In the midst of your chaos and in the face of your shame, God sees, God knows, God loves. But what about in our suffering? As a pastor who has experienced my own seasons of suffering and grief, I always try to imagine what my sermon must sound like to someone who's in one of those seasons. How might Psalm 139 sound to a person in pain? I think our suffering can cause us to question: does God really see me?

Does God really know what I'm going through? Does God even care? I think back to Jesus’s encounter with Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus. Each one of them says to him, independently of the other...

And sometimes a statement is more than a statement. It seems to me that underneath the statement is a question.

Where were you? How could you?

And I think those questions are very common for people in pain. Where were you, God? How could you let me go through this? But then we find in that story the shortest verse in the Bible.

That's also one of its most profound: John 11:35. Jesus wept. The shortest verse is so profound because on the Christian story, God has tear ducts. The Christian story does not give us easy answers to the question of why God allows evil in our world and suffering in our lives. But at the heart of the Christian story is the claim that God does not stand idly by watching the world spin madly on and coolly observing the suffering of his creatures.

On the Christian story, God has entered into our suffering. He has taken on our suffering—taking on a suffering beyond our ability to fully imagine—and has triumphed over suffering in order to give us a hope beyond it. The God who sees us and knows us and loves us in our suffering is the God with tear ducts.

Friends, what you see and hear depends a great deal on where you're standing, and it also depends on what sort of person you are. And this is true for us. When we come to the Scriptures, the Bible speaks to us in different ways, depending on the seasons or circumstances in which we find ourselves when we come to it. But what we find in the poem that is Psalm 139 is that, in the midst of your chaos, in the face of your shame, or in your seasons of suffering—God sees, God knows, God loves.