The following article is an excerpt from Praying with David by Michael Phillips.

Psalm 139, by any standards, ranks as one of the seminal mountain top passages of Scripture, taking its place with Genesis 1-2, Exodus 20:3-17, Deuteronomy 6-8, Psalm 23, Proverbs 3:1-18, 1 Corinthians 13, Philippians 4:8, and of course Matthew 5-7, John 13-17, the parables of the Prodigal Son and Good Samaritan and much in the gospels.

Climaxing this incomparably beautiful anthem of praise to God’s all-knowing love for his expansive universe, and for every tiniest part of each of our created beings, David was clearly swept into the loftiest regions of inspiration when he set down for all time the ultimate prayer of humanity. It is the prayer God created every man, woman, and child who ever lived and who will ever live to be made capable of praying. It is the prayer that embodies the eternal purpose of life.

It is the prayer of all prayers. Notwithstanding David’s unfortunate tangential rant in verses 19-22, Psalm 139 is rich beyond measure. Even these four parenthetical verses remind us that David was human after all. In a way it makes the towering prayer that follows the brief diatribe all the more precious in that it was prayed in the midst of a very active and often conflicted sin-nature.

I love the Lord’s Gethsemane prayer and try to be fed by it daily. But David was just like me! He was a weak and frail man. This outpouring from the deepest regions of his heart after he has vented his venom against his enemies brings this ultimate prayer close into the reality of life…into the reality of my life. This entire psalm could provide food for many days of rich devotional contemplation. I admit to a certain envy of artists and songwriters and musicians whose gifts in the creative arts are beyond my imagining.

I’ve only written one song in my life. It was simply entitled “Psalm 139.” Earlier I called Psalm 119 “the loftiest window into David’s heart for God.” Alongside it sits the equally translucent portal into eternity of Psalm 139. The only line from that song I now even remember clearly was, “This is too glorious, too wonderful to believe—I can never be lost to your Spirit.”

This central truth captures the essence of David’s insight as is so creatively and passionately conveyed in this psalm: God is everywhere! He knew us before we were born. He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. He is with us when we are awake, when we sleep, in light, in darkness. He is in heaven, he is in hell. He has been with us in our spiritual journeys toward him from their inception. He birthed those journeys himself! Of course he is with us and beside us and in us all the way through them.

He sees us when we take our first steps toward Him, and notes the very beginnings of our heart’s longings for Him. In the parable, the father was watching and saw the prodigal as he came painfully and wearily homeward, and when he saw him he ran to meet him. (J.R. Miller, Help for the Day, London, Andrew Melrose, date unknown, p. 141.)

God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. There are no secrets. Far from finding this a fearsome thing, David rejoices in it. He loves the fact that God knows his innermost heart. How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God! (Psalm 139:17).

Then David takes an unprecedented step into regions we have no record of any man having gone before. He invites his all-knowing, all-seeing, eternal creator-Father all the way inside, and asks him, almost pleads with him, to give him, David, the same intimate self-knowledge of himself that God has. He asks for God’s eyes into himself. He does not resist the secret knowledge of himself. He courts it, hungers for it. With all his heart he begs God to scour his innermost self, shining in the probing light of righteousness, illuminating, revealing, healing, cleansing, perfecting. It is simply the most remarkable righteousness-hungering prayer of a mortal man in Scripture.

These words poured out of the heart of David as a single prayer. It remains for us to pray David’s words as we follow his footsteps into these hallowed regions of intimacy. I am not alone in deriving inspiration from Psalm 139. The lyrics of many songs have used it.

The words of one of my favorite hymns by J. Edwin Orr, I find almost as powerful a prayer as those by David’s own hand. Combining hints of Gethsemane and John 15 with a haunting old Maori melody from New Zealand, it brings prayerful chills every time I quietly sing it.

Cleanse me, O God, and know my heart today. Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me, Cleanse me from every sin and set me free. Lord, take my life and make it wholly thine; Fill my poor heart with thy great love divine. Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride; I now surrender, Lord—in me abide.

– Excerpted from pages 73-77 of Praying with David by Michael Phillips