Psalm 139:23-24
Psalm 139 happens to be one of my favorite Psalms, as I am sure for a lot of people reading this too. And even though a lot of the times we comment on the first few verses on how God knows us inside out,
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
or how He knew of our existence before we were even conceived,
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
I would like to expand on the last couple of verses as they have spoken strongly to me throughout the past few years of my life.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
This is a prayer I often come back to, and if I may call it so – a “dangerous” one. “Dangerous” in the sense that we humans ask from a Holy God to search our hearts and our thoughts… and even though we would like to think that that’s a pleasant path to go down, the reality of the matter is that it is not; because whether we’d like to admit it or not, none of us can even compare to the purity and the holiness of God Almighty.
This is where the beauty of Grace comes in…
Through Christ we can come into the presence of God, with all our dirt and filth, and not only be washed clean, but also lay before him as His children and as holy beings in Christ. ( Col. 1:22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him)
Even though we have been washed clean, we still struggle with sin in this world, and so our hearts and thoughts aren’t always Christ-like. What do we do to change that though? How do we stop ourselves from having unclean thoughts or deceiving hearts?! In all honesty, I don’t think we can fully accomplish that, considering sin is all around us and sooner or later we all fall in big or small ways. But we can surely do our best to limit the falls and smashing our faces on the ground. And even when I say “our” best, I mean our willingness to allow God to do the work. If all this were up to “our” strengths and abilities, then surely there wouldn’t be a way to win the battle, but thankfully Christ takes it all upon Him. And so to me, knowing that Christ does the work in me and carries the load instead of me, is a lot more reassuring and encouraging.
That’s why we need to turn our focus on Christ. When the Psalmist was saying: “see if there be any grievous way in me”, he knew God would indeed find something grievous in him, just like in all of us. To dare take that step and ask God to do that in our lives is something really HARD…. It’s hard when you let your guard down and allow someone else to see every speck of dirt you have and expose it. It’s a lot easier to hide within our walls and pretend like the dirt isn’t there at all…and so we become comfortable in our current state and sooner or later we learn to live thinking that the dirt is part of who we are. But that is NOT what God wants from us. He sees us for who we could be and that is a representation of His image on earth – with no dirt upon us!
In order to get rid of that dirt we need to take that first step of asking God to come and SEARCH our hearts. He already knows our hearts, but by us asking Him to search our inner parts is what eventually will bring change and allow God to mold us more into His image. For Him to “lead me (us) in the way everlasting”, we must first become vulnerable in His presence and humble ourselves to accept His ways.
Many times we tend to let the idea of change frighten us or hold us back, but it’s only with change that real growth can occur. And if we want to mature in our relationship with Christ, trusting Him in every step of the way, we must first take the risk of allowing Him to reveal parts of our life and character that we need to change. I can already tell you that this decision will bring hurt and pain and struggles, (that’s why I mentioned how I call it a “dangerous” prayer), but it’s only through those experiences that we can gain perseverance and steadfastness in our faith as we come one step closer to the person God intended us to be!
As James well wrote:
” 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
So today I want to encourage each one of you reading this, to take the risk and ask God to search your hearts. Allow Him to work in you and reveal what needs to be changed… and through that may you discover the beauty of being able to trust a God who really does know us better than we know ourselves and who can already see the best version of ourselves. May that be our goal!
