Ps 139:23-24: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns [anxieties]. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way” [HCSB]
I find it interesting that in Psalm 139, after David has sung about God’s making him a marvelous work, God knowing every day of David’s life and what it would hold, and David’s rejoicing in God’s specific thoughts for him, that David would pray this prayer … search me, know my heart, test me, know my anxieties, see if there is anything offensive in me.
Hasn’t David been saying throughout his song that God already knows these things? Certainly, God knows everything in David. God knows everything in each of us. But David’s prayer is not about God understanding what is in David, it is about David understanding what is in David.
When God searches us, He reveals what is in our hearts to us … all our anxieties, all our offensive ways. He does that so that we might come to a true, humble, right opinion of who we are. He does that so that we might allow Him to then lead us in the way everlasting through His mercy and grace.
Without a true, humble, right knowledge of self, we will not be led. We will continue to lead, to live our lives in the way we want, according to our own anxious thoughts and offensive ways.
When we pray search me O God … we need to remember one thing … God will more than likely find something! So be prepared when you pray as David prayed!
