Search Me & Know Me

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.

- Psalm 139:23-24

This verse has been on my heart for the past 2 weeks, for the mere use of words that God choses to speak to us through. As I read this, there were 3 phrases that stuck out to me that really allowed me to understand God a little bit better then yesterday -

"Search me.." - search - "the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone; try to locate or discover, or to establish the existence of."

There is something precious in asking God to look through you and to really search deep within you. It's a request that God doesn't need us to make, it's a request that He already does, but the difference is, in asking you know that the good, bad, and the ugly might come out. But it's acknowledging that despite that, you still want God to look within you. It's acknowledging that you want God to search you because you need Him too. It is acknowledging your place before God, it is taking yourself down to a place where you know God is the only one who can "actively look through you to establish your existence", to establish you.

"Know my.." - know - "be familiar or aquainted with an object, have fixed in the mind"

This phrase is what I have been stuck on for 2 weeks. When asking someone to know you, that is a deep thing, it isn't just anything. When telling someone, hey, I want to get to know you better, it infers that you want to get closer to them, you want to build on your relationship. Likewise, in knowing something, you are established in it. You know it, meaning you can't waiver in it. When you say you know how to drive, that means that you aren't questioning yourself, or second guessing, you have a firm foundation in it. In the same respect, asking God to know my heart, were asking Him to really go deep within the ugly parts, because the heart is deceptive, and to fix Himself on the throne of our heart. It's asking Him to firmly understand us and fix His mind on us. We are asking a holy God, who loves us deeply, to not only search us but to also know us. To know everything about us. It's hard for me to put my mind around asking a holy God into a heart that is not holy, asking a humble God to know a prideful heart, asking a loving God to know a hardened heart full of hate. But God, because of Jesus' obedience and sacrifice, knows us. God does say in Scripture that He will not despise a broken and contrite heart. (Psalm 51:17) So, knowing what the state of our heart is, God in his infinite majesty, still choses to know my heart, and my anxieties.

I also love the fact that this is a request and not something that is taken foregranted. It's a humble request, to know me. To know my heart, to know my thoughts, to know me.

"Lead me.." - lead - "to guide on a way, especially by going in advance, to direct on a course or in a direction."

The last request in these 2 vereses. Asking God to lead you. It's amazing what your doing when asking God to lead. Your asking God to guide you, by going ahead of you. That means, you don't go ahead of God and tell Him to come along, but you let Him pave the path, and then go. Amazing picture isn't it? In asking God to lead you, your acknowledging that He knows better, that He has the perfect plan, and that His ways are better then yours.

It's interesting how 3 requests that seem simple, that seem like a given that we don't need to really ask for, are really impactful.

As you go through this day, this week, this month, ask God to: 1) Search you 2) Know you and 3) Lead you.

I guarentee you, you won't be the same.