The Search

 23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24

Psalm 139:23-24 isn't a popular or much used prayer, and when it is prayed, it too often is not at all sincere. Most of us are not anxious to be "searched" by the Holy Spirit. We prefer to hide. That's our flesh's first reaction to a holy God. In the garden, the first thing Adam and Eve sought to do after their sin was to to hide from Him. They couldn't. Neither can we. Not me, and not you. But we can do a wonderful job of thinking we can.

Few of us, especially we who profess to know Him, ever want to think that the word "wicked" could ever be attached to us. That's a term we reserve for the Hitler's, the Stalin's, the murderer's, rapists, and sex and drug traffickers of this world. Yet God defines as wicked any attitude or behavior that goes against His will and purpose for our lives. We are fallen people, born into a fallen world. We're born at cross purposes with Him, in rebellion against Him. Oftentimes openly, but even more often, subtly. When we come to Jesus Christ by faith, we're forgiven of all our sins, and made right with Him. However, the effects of our previous rebellion remain embedded in our hearts and mind, and He is dedicated to searching them out, shining His healing Light upon them, and eradicating them from our lives. This can be painful, light hurts the eyes that have for so long been attuned to darkness. Death fights life, but neither darkness or death can stand against His Light and Life, so it will always choose to hide. We must allow Him, indeed, invite Him to search it out, and to die to them all.

In my prayer journal I have this prayer that I seek to keep before Him on a consistent life basis. I ask that He would destroy these obstacles to my growth in Him wherever they may be found, and I have been guilty at various times and in various degrees of all of them. So have you. I'll briefly list each:

Unbelief....Or a lack of faith and trust in Him. We don't fully believe what He says, about Himself, about ourselves. It often shows up as double-mindedness. We flip flop between taking Him at His Word but also doubting it. He seeks to search out its roots, and they can go deep, so that we reach that place of a decision to trust no matter what. When that happens, we grow in grace, and darkness and death lose their grip.

Pride....This shows up in our lives in an infinite amount of ways. In the main, it is us exalting ourselves against everything and everyone, even the Father. It can be very subtle, and disguise itself as righteousness. We excuse it, and He hates it because it always denies Him. It's the most rooted of all of them and the most painful to have exposed in us.

Idolatry....Our hearts can contain millions of little and big idols, all of them supplanting Him in some way. They can be husbands, wives, children, jobs, possessions, comfort, success, even ministry. All of them seek His place. None of them will be tolerated by Him. Their destruction must happen if we are to ever grow more and more into His image.

Prayerlessness....This may be our most excused of all of them because we don't feel we harm anyone in it. And we can excuse it in ourselves so easily, to the point where we're sure He's not too upset with it. He understands how we haven't the time for it, that we have so much other stuff going on. We don't want to see that it springs from our lack of desire for Him. Worst of all, no matter how often He shines His light upon it, we find ways to continue on in it.

Legalism...Also disguised as righteousness. Or justice. We hold ourselves and others to rigid standards so that we exhaust ourselves and everybody else. More, we depend upon ourselves, and not Him to live up to them. It is deeply linked to pride, and just as evasive. Where it exists, His love and mercy do not. It goes to great lengths to hide from Him.

All of these I invite Him to search out in me, but sadly, not often enough. All of them are obstacles to His advance in our hearts and lives, and as long as we remain guilty of trying to hide them from His searching love, they'll remain and seek to block His growth in our lives. Only He can expose and cleanse them from our hearts, but that won't happen until we are sincerely desiring the work of the prayer in Psalm 139. Are we? Are you? Am I? Sincerely? Until we are, we'll not know the fullness of "the way everlasting."

Blessings,

Pastor O