When You Feel Exposed
What Psalm 139 Teaches Us About Being Fully Seen and Fully Loved
You know that moment at the doctor’s office? You’re sitting on the crinkly paper, and they start asking questions. Not the easy ones—your address, your allergies. The other ones.
“Have you been feeling anxious or depressed?”
“When’s the last time you exercised?”
And you’re doing mental math, wondering how honest to be. Because once you say it out loud, someone knows. They’ll write it down. It goes in your chart.
Being fully known feels dangerous.
David opens Psalm 139 with words that should comfort us. But if we’re honest? They might make us squirm first.
“O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.”
Searched. Known. Discerned.
These aren’t warm fuzzy words. This is examination language. Investigation language. David’s saying God hasn’t just glanced at us, He’s studied us. Thoroughly.
Look at verse 2 again. God knows when you sit down and when you get up. That’s your whole day. Your productive hours and your wasted ones. The morning you bounced out of bed to pray, and the morning you hit snooze six times and scrolled your phone for thirty minutes.
He knows it all.
But what David says next may make us even more uncomfortable: “You discern my thoughts from afar.”
From afar. He doesn’t need to be close. He doesn’t need you to speak. The thoughts you’d never say out loud? The jealous ones, the bitter ones, the lustful ones, the ones where you imagined telling that person exactly what you think of them? God catches those from a distance. Now verse 3:
“You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.”
Acquainted. Not casually familiar. Intimately acquainted. The route you take to work. The habits nobody sees. What you do when you’re alone, when the door’s closed, when you think nobody’s watching.
Think about your browser history. Not just the one on your computer … the one in your mind. Every mental rabbit trail you’ve followed this week. God’s acquainted with all of it. Next, David says:
“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.”
You can’t even finish forming the sentence before God knows where you’re going with it. You can’t craft the explanation, massage the truth, or spin the story. He already knows.
This is terrifying if you’re trying to hide.
But here’s what David realizes—and when he does, it changes everything. Verse 6:
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.”
Wonderful. Not terrible. Not oppressive. Wonderful.
Why?
Because the God who sees everything... hasn’t left.
Think about it. If I knew what God knows about you, I might keep my distance. If you knew what God knows about me, you’d probably do the same. We all have parts of ourselves we’d rather keep covered.
But God doesn’t maintain a safe distance. Verse 5 says He hems us in, behind and before. He’s surrounded us. His hand is upon us. The God who sees your 3 AM thoughts... stays close. The God who knows every petty thing you thought during that meeting... doesn’t withdraw.
The God who’s acquainted with all your ways—the good ones and the shameful ones—places His hand on you in blessing, not judgment. God’s knowledge isn’t divine surveillance designed to catch you messing up. It’s the foundation for real intimacy. You can’t be truly loved by someone who doesn’t truly know you. And you can’t be truly known without being fully seen, the good parts and the parts you hide.
God sees it all. The secret generosity and the secret sin. The prayers you whispered and the words you wish you could take back. The version of you that you show the world and the version that exists at 2 AM when you can’t sleep. And He hasn’t turned away. That’s wonderful. That’s the kind of knowledge we can’t attain on our own—that we could be this known, and this loved at the same time.
You don’t have to perform for God. He already knows. You don’t have to hide from God. He’s already seen. And He’s still here. His hand on you, surrounding you, fully knowing and fully loving you. That’s the God who searched you and knows you. And yes, at first, that feels exposing. But eventually? It feels like freedom.
