“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” (Psalm 139:23-24 NLT)
What disturbs you most about yourself?
The prayer of the Psalmist above is a prayer I often pray, but why? Probably because I’m too often unable to see myself for who I really am. I’m tempted, as I suspect you are, to be too easy on myself. The word above that the Psalmist prayed, that is translated “Search,” is a word that means “to examine thoroughly; to be searched out, be found out, be ascertained.”
No one can know us as thoroughly or see our heart as clearly as our heavenly Father. Why is that so important to know? Because until we put ourselves prostrate before the Lord and in sincerity and genuine desire ask Him to search us, we’ll never know who we really are, thus, never be equipped to live a life that is pleasing to Him.
“Test,” as used in the verse above, means to scrutinize our anxious, disturbing thoughts. These are the things we think about that only God knows; they’re the kinds of thoughts that cause us to ask ourselves: “how can I even claim to be a child of God and think such things!” These are the things that tempt us to walk away from God, giving up on ourselves because we can’t imagine how God could love us or ever forgive us.
It’s easy to walk with God when faith is new and forgiveness is easy, but over time you come to a point, as the Apostle Paul revealed in Romans 7:24, when he cried out: “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” And don’t misunderstand, he’s not speaking of the quality of his outward life, but the hauntings of his heart.
He understood, as we all must, that regardless of how long we’ve walked with the Lord, we will never attain a righteousness of our own; our lives will never be perfect, unstained by the sins of which we’re capable given the right set of circumstances. Yes, of course, God views us through the lens of Christ’s perfection, but our minds never cease to accuse us and seek to debilitate our efforts to live pleasingly before the Lord.
But having said that, once we realize that “apart from Jesus we can do nothing and are nothing,” we’re liberated to live a life we never dreamed we could. Prayer is a pleasure we pursue without reservation; serving Him in whatever capacity becomes a joy; pain, sorrow, suffering become invited guests that reveal His presence in fuller measures than we ever imagined.
George Müller, a man of great faith for whom God answered prayer in miraculous ways, wrote: “The beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.” The greatest battlefield of our lives as believers is our mind. If Satan can occupy your mind with trivialities, he’ll rob your soul of peace and fill your heart with anxious thoughts and attitudes that will cripple your usefulness for God.
What disturbs me most about myself is my seeming relentless drive to see the worst in myself, thus expecting less of myself than God’s best. True faith, as Müller uses it, isn’t some high and lofty position that we at some point reach where nothing bothers us, or we become oblivious to the troubling things around us. Quite to the contrary, it’s a faith that sensitizes us to the ever-presence of God’s Spirit guiding, teaching, helping, sustaining us in ways that are uncommon, even among professing believers.
It’s a peace that is unexplainable because our confidence isn’t in ourselves or our own resources, but in the unseen hand that is always with us, for us, and gaining glory through us, not so people can make much of us, but much of the One who owns our heart and life.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 