The Gift of Another Year

¹ LORD, you have examined me. You know me. ² You know when I sit down and when I stand up. Even from far away, you comprehend my plans. ³ You study my traveling and resting. You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways. ⁴ There isn’t a word on my tongue, LORD, that you don’t already know completely. ⁵ You surround me—front and back. You put your hand on me. ⁶ That kind of knowledge is too much for me; it’s so high above me that I can’t fathom it. ⁷ Where could I go to get away from your spirit? Where could I go to escape your presence? ⁸ If I went up to heaven, you would be there. If I went down to the grave, you would be there too! ⁹ If I could fly on the wings of dawn, stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean ¹⁰ even there your hand would guide me; even there your strong hand would hold me tight! ¹¹ If I said, “The darkness will definitely hide me; the light will become night around me,” ¹² even then the darkness isn’t too dark for you! Nighttime would shine bright as day, because darkness is the same as light to you! ¹³ You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart. Your works are wonderful—I know that very well. ¹⁵ My bones weren’t hidden from you when I was being put together in a secret place, when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened. ¹⁷ God, your plans are incomprehensible to me! Their total number is countless! ¹⁸ If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand! If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you.