In the last part of the 1800’s, Francis Thompson wrote a poem based on Psalm 139 entitled “The Hound of Heaven.” Like the hunting dog sticks to the trail of his quarry, so God sticks with His people. Even though we try to elude Him, still he presses on. Nothing can hide us. No thought of ours escapes His attention. No place is to far from His presence.
It’s scary, is it not, that someone should know this much about us, should stick this close to us?
And yet, the writer finds comfort in God’s company. In fact, He invites God’s scrutiny. Which of us would say: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting?”
But the Psalmist says it because He trusts God to use that knowledge to mold his life and make a relationship with the divine better.