Thankful Thursday

I have a cold today...a miserable one that's really laid me low, praise God. Now, I know you think that's a pretty strange thing to be thanking God for but hear me out on this one.

What I am really thanking God for today is His omniscience. He is all-knowing and that knowledge includes His knowledge of me. He made me! And I am an introvert and a homebody! I've learned to temper those qualities over the years but I still need more alone time than many other people I know and my most satisfying alone time is spent at home.

But I've had various people in the house for the last 10 days or so working on this electrical project. People, nice as could be but...they are not even friends let alone family members!

Yesterday marked the end of phase one on the project and we get a few days off until the power company gets the approved inspection and schedules their part of the job. I did have some commitments today and tomorrow but God in His infinite knowledge of me and His loving kindness forced me to cancel them and stay home. In fact, He made the cold of enough magnitude to force me to rest at home!

I've been thinking of Psalm 139 today, a psalm that praises our Lord for His omniscience. Here it is in its entirety:

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

⁵ You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

¹⁵ 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,

¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

¹⁹ If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

But it is verse five that I am especially meditating on today. You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. I needed that hemming today. I needed the shepherding that He provided for me, His stupid sheep that probably would not have done what was best for herself, canceling commitments and taking a day of rest, without His tender care. I'm praising God for His hand upon me!

Each Thursday of this year, I am joining with Kim of The Upward Call and others in giving thanks to our loving God for the good gifts He gives us. Won't you join us?