Just As You Are

In the romantic comedy, Bridget Jones' Diary, there is a scene where the seeming arrogant barrister confronts the flighty, irresponsible blonde TV personality with his feelings. Bridget, the blonde, is expecting the worst because she thinks he despises her. In fact, he tells her, "No, I like you very much...just as you are." The line is an important turning point in the movie because his feelings undermine all of her assumptions about herself and about him.

To many people, Bridget's expectations about the barrister are equivalent to their feelings about God. They feel like God is judgmental, arrogant, and superior. Just as Bridget thought the attorney was popping up everywhere in her life just to embarrass her, many feel like the idea of an omnipresent God Who is everywhere is inconvenient, intrusive, and threatening. In fact, the psalmist recognized this in Psalm 139 when she or he wrote of the inability to be out of God's sight whether in heaven with God or in the place of the dead where one wouldn't expect the God of life to be (v. 8). The psalmist knew that going as far east or as far west as possible (v. 9), there was no way to escape God. The psalm even says that there is no way to hide from God--even in darkness (v. 12).

Yet, the psalmist takes hope in the fact that God knows her or him from the inside-out (verses 13-16) and that even though a human can't comprehend God's omniscience (verses 17-18), a human being can trust God to deliver him or her from enemies and dangerous situations (verses 19-24). I once heard Earl Palmer, pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington, preach on this passage. He compared the psalmist's idea of a God from Whose presence you could not escape to the appearance of the Washington State Patrol. He said that if one was speeding, it wasn't exciting or comforting to see that the Washington State Patrol was wherever you happened to be. Yet, if there was a strange car that had been following you for miles under questionable circumstances, you would be thrilled to see the Washington State Patrol, especially if the officer pulled over the threatening vehicle. Essentially, the psalmist is saying that she/he isn't speeding and he/she is feeling threatened. S/he wants God to be the officer Who pulls the threatening enemy over.

Our attitude toward God is a matter of context, whether we are living in God's will or not. But that's not the only thing I see in this psalm. In what I call the "inside-out" verses (13-16), I sense that because God is aware of me from the DNA up and because God as Creator provided for my particular and pecular pattern of amino acids that determine my physical and mental reality, God isn't watching over me or intimately involved in my life to catch me doing something wrong. God isn't the driver training instructor with one foot hovering nervously over the special brake pedal. God wants us to succeed because God not only likes us just the way we are, but God loves us and wants us to triumph even more.

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[Daniel An]

So when God convicts us, it's a reminder that God actually cares about our lives and destiny.