Sunday Devotional: Psalm 139:4

When there is not an utterance on my tongue, O Lord, you know its entirety.

Last week we looked at Psalm 139:16, and there noted the possible context of the psalm. If you recall, the psalm is a declaration of God’s limitless knowledge of David, and, by extension, every one of us. And God’s knowledge is not simply a database of information concerning our lives and personalities, but intimate knowledge of our thoughts, our actions, our motives, and our feelings. In other words, God doesn’t simply know about us; He knows us–better than we know ourselves.

In verse 4, David declares that even the words we speak are known by God. In fact, they are known by Him “when there is not an utterance on my tongue.” This literal rendering of the Hebrew simply states that the words that pour out of our mouths, words that often seem to us random and unpredictable, are a reality to God before they are even a thought in our minds. He knows what we are going to say before we say it. Every single thought that passes from our minds to our lips is to God as good as spoken. And he knows “its entirety”–all there is to know about that utterance, its real meaning, to whom it is intended, whether or not it is true, whether or not it is something that should have been left unsaid.

If we truly grasp this fact, then we realize that our thought life is an open book to God. We have no secrets before Him. And if our words bring accusations against us, as much as we might deny or defend the things we said, God always knows the truth. James reminds us that the tongue, though a relatively small and seemingly unimportant organ, has a great deal of power (see James 3). We do well to guard it, and to check everything that comes from it. Do our words bless, or curse? Are they honest, or deceptive? Do they seek to tear down, or to build up? Are they sacrificial, or self-serving? As much as we might try to deceive ourselves or others about the true nature of our words, God is not deceived, and it’s to Him we are accountable.

May we seek to be a blessing to the Lord, and to those around us, with our words, that the glory of God and the beauty of the gospel may show through the way we communicate to one another.

Have a great week!