There is a type celebration of self as one of the creations of God in this Psalm of David. There is, a proper-Spirit to soul appreciation of our own identity. This wondrous thing God made, David takes time to muse on. To say, i too am fearfully and wonderfully made. He reverences or honors his own self, as a poem of The Most High.
Since there is no place where God is not, one can meet him in any situation. Since, we are part of His creation, we can also meet Him in ourselves. This is a radical view of God’s Lordship and immanence in every dimension of Reality including our own humanity.
How we are put together is one of the things God was saying about Himself from the beginning of creation. This is a type of spiritual psychology. To understand self as a meditation on God.
Few other writers have entered this gate. Thomas Merton is one, and there are a few others. It is often viewed as selfish in Christianity to meditate on one’s own self as an act of worship of God. But this is exactly what David does in this Psalm.
All of creation reflects The Divine. And all is a place of potential conversation with The Most High. Jesus was called, the sustainer of all things, holding all things together in His Own Being. Therefore He is encounterable through all things. This frees us from mere circumstances. We no longer have to meet Him only in “sacred” spaces; we are free to meet Him in every type of space; every inch of Reality is infused with His Spirit, and can become a Holy Temple.
God also can anoint certain personalities, so that there very psychology and life become highlighted teaching or symbols of some aspect of Himself. You see this in the case of David, st Paul, and the prophet Jeremiah–where there very lives became symbols of something God was saying about Himself. David said in another Psalm, “for I have become a living portent (symbol, sign)”. The fact that God would anoint personality to reveal specific aspects of Himself is often overlooked. Yes, there is death to self, and taking up one’s cross, but there is also celebration of God’s superior workmanship in humanity (Ephesians 2:10).
Also st Paul was a personality, which after being hollowed out, was allowed to become a specific teaching of God on earth. God did not take away his personality when he was blinded and sent to the desert! He gave it the truth, and so a context for all its zeal and fieriness. For just as we are under the influence of the fall of Adam, so this new Adam has come and is in the process of redeeming, transforming, and making whole our personalities.
To meet Christ then is to know more and be capable of celebrating more of your true self. For He is the Author and sustainer of true identity.
God saturates the entire tapestry of Reality, is clearly one of David’s points in this meditation. He fills the heaven, the earth, and myself. There is no where He cannot be found. What a ferociously immanent God is this, who can be found everywhere, through everything. This is not a distant Father who is only reachable through complex incantations and rituals. This is a God who is omnipresent and desirous of being known in whatever area of Reality His Spirit guides you into! This a Revealer of Himself, and The Light of understanding into ourselves! Regardless of circumstances, and changing seasons and settings, He is here, even in these words!
Daniel also knew that God was Lord over every realm of Reality. God could meet one in dream and vision, or through the study of books, or through governing people. He understood from experience, that God could even meet you while you were in the midst of being tortured. Hence, David’s “If I make my bed in hell”.
These truths free us up to explore all of Reality, but also to not be ruled by our outer circumstances, but rather to see them as a medium through which to know Our Creator! There is great freedom in the reality of these truths David was considering! And a living freedom to explore one’s own identity, as a place of meeting our maker.
