Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (14)

 

 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23 – 24).

 

Having considered Psalm 19:12 – 14 in its context, let’s now ponder Psalm 139:23 – 24 in its setting. We’ll begin by noting that the psalmist asks God to search him, we are not capable of searching ourselves. Our “insides” are too complex and too jumbled for us to rightly discern them – we must look to God and His Living Word to reveal what He will in the times and seasons that He desires. We must trust our kind heavenly Father and our faithful Lord Jesus.

 

Psalm 139 begins with, “O Yahweh, You have searched me and known me.” The psalm begins with God searching us, and it concludes with a prayer that God may continue to search us.

 

In the first movement of the psalm (vv. 1 – 5), we see that God knows when we sit and stand, He knows our thoughts, He knows the paths of life we take and when we lie down, He knows what we are going to say before we speak, He envelops us.

 

Then, in verse 8, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it. We might say that the awareness of God’s intimate knowledge of us is a “mind blower.”

 

Our Father’s intimate knowledge of us continues in the second movement (vv. 7 – 16) in which we see that wherever we go He is there and that His caring hand will rest upon us, that He wove us and knew us in the womb, and that our days have been recorded.

 

Then we come to another pause for reflection, similar to verse 6, “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” (vv. 17 – 18).

 

The psalmist is overwhelmed with the impenetrable depth of intimacy with God, of God’s knowledge of him and of his knowledge of God. To think the very thoughts of God, to sense His heartbeat, to touch Him and to be touched by Him – who has words for these things? (Consider Rom. 8:26 – 27 and 1 Cor. 2:6 – 16).

 

The third movement (vv. 19 – 22) reminds us that we live in a world in conflict (Psalm 2; 1 John 2:15 - 17). Whether within us or without us, we can have no compromise with evil and elements in rebellion against God.

 

Then we have the conclusion, standing alongside the interludes of verses 6, 17, and 18. We want our intimate relationship with God our Father and His searching to continue, we want the way the psalm begins to be the way the psalm concludes, but not only the way it concludes, but rather the way life in the Father continues – we desire our intimacy with Him to grow ever higher and ever deeper – for He is our destiny, our purpose, our glory…to know Him as daughters and sons in Jesus Christ.

 

Can we see the Father’s pruning in Psalm 139?

 

The prayer for God to know and test and purify our hearts and thoughts, is part of the fabric of life as sons and daughters of the Living God (Hebrews 4:12 – 16; 5:8 – 9; 12:1 – 13). This is to be our Way of Life in Jesus Christ as we are conformed into His image.

 

We are not capable of pruning ourselves – our heavenly Father is the vinedresser and He uses the pruning shears of His Word to operate deep within us.

 

“And see if there be any hurtful way in me…” Anxious thoughts (v. 23) can lead to hurtful ways (v. 24) in that anxious thoughts can drive us from trusting in our Father and toward taking things into our own hands. Hurtful ways hurt both ourselves and others – they deface the image of God within us and they seek to destroy the image of God in others.

 

When we rest in God we acknowledge His knowledge, Presence, and sovereignty as expressed in Psalm 139. When we attempt to seize control of life we repudiate the foregoing and make a hurtful mess of things.

 

Most of us have anxious thoughts. The challenge is what we do with our anxious thoughts. We can either submit our anxious thoughts to our Father and Lord Jesus, trusting them to care for us, or we can nurture our anxious thoughts and allow them to take over our hearts and minds and souls – becoming their slaves and forcing those poisonous thoughts on others.

 

To return to John 15:1 – 11, will we draw our life from the Vine or will we attempt to live life on our own?

 

Certainly “the Everlasting Way” is our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the Way of Psalm 1, and in Him there is healing and not hurt; in Him anxious thoughts are dispelled as we know Him as our Sabbath Rest.

 

As we ponder how intimately our Father knows us, let us realize that “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love. That He predestined us to adoption [the placing of sons] through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” (Ephesians 1:4 – 5).

 

Our Father prunes us, drawing us ever deeper into Himself, so that we may bear the image of His Son, so that Jesus might be the Firstborn among many brethren.

 

O holy Father, search us and try us deeply, so that we may know You deeply.