1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know EVERYTHING about me.
2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.
4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.
5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!
7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night—
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous— how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
There was a time in my life when the thought of God seeing everything I did was very embarrassing and intimidating. There are a lot of things I wish God couldn’t see. As I read this passage now, I see so much more then that. I see that God is watching me with love, his thoughts about me are precious. He loves me so much that he would actually pay attention to the small details of my life! God loves you and is concerned for each moment of your life. You’d think he’d be to busy to notice when I get out of bed in the morning, but He does. He is walking before you to lead you and prepare the way for you, and he follows you to protect you because he loves you that much. He longs to bless you. There is nowhere that we can go to hide from God. Verse 12 says that even the darkness cannot hide us from God. It’s pointless to try to hide our sins from him. I have spoken with people who have said that they are embarrassed to ask God to forgive them because they don’t feel like they can talk to God about their sin. They don’t want to admit their sins to Him. Know this, God loves you, and He already knows all your faults. He is waiting to forgive them. Jesus already paid the penalty for you. You need to be willing to lay your life before him and allow him to show you anything in you that He doesn’t like. The sin in our lives is offensive to God, but only He can take it away.
I used this psalm as a prayer guide and asked the Lord to search my heart and reveal to me the sins in my life that I was unaware of. Let me tell you, this is not a prayer to be made lightly! God took my offer and in the course if a week he pointed out and showed me examples of several areas in my life where I hadn’t even realized I was struggling (and I’m sure he’s not done yet). I hadn’t realized these things were holding me back from real growth and fellowship with Christ. God showed me all these things through several experiences. The first was a Bible study I went to at church. I really wanted to grow spiritually, and also meet new Christian women. I was hoping for deep conversation that would help me learn new things about God and the Bible. When I saw that the topic was memorizing and meditating on Scripture I did an instant mental eye roll. You know what I mean? The sigh that says “here we go again.” I thought, “I already know this, I’ve been memorizing scripture all my life, this isn’t what I need right now.” I listened and put my two cents in, I heard what they said about dwelling on Gods word instead of allowing your mind to dwell and meditate on what so and so said or did to make you mad. - I heard it all, but my pride didn’t allow me to really listen. In the end I walked away disappointed.
It wasn’t until the next evening when I was at home, and my three kids were all pestering me for something at the same time, my husband was sitting at his computer -not helping. My mind was bitter, I was thinking “why isn’t he helping, can’t he hear what is going on?!” Now, did I ask for his help?- No, and I’m sure he was busy doing something equally if not more important. But I was allowing myself to meditate on thoughts of anger and complaining. Suddenly it all hit me, I realized that that Bible study that I thought had been beneath me was, in fact, exactly what I had needed to hear and put into practice. I stopped to think about how often my mind and spirit were complaining and dissatisfied or resentful; I was surprised at how often it really was. It was a very humbling experience! At that point I thanked God for that Bible study, and opened my heart and really listened to what God had to tell me about my faults. Here is a short list of things that God showed me about myself...yikes!
1.) Don’t think you are better or more spiritual then you really are. I still have a lot to teach you and you need to listen at every opportunity.
2.) Your mind is a mess. You dwell on complaints and negative thoughts instead of the good, my grace, and my words. Be thankful for what I have given you.
3.) Accept the criticism of others take it to heart and do not try to prove yourself right all the time. I am the final word on everything and I see your heart and your motives.
4.) Focus on me and the things I can accomplish through you, not on yourself and what you can do.
5.) Be considerate of the needs, feelings, and time of others. That means you have to train yourself to pay attention, and don’t give excuses that you didn’t mean it. Being inconsiderate means that you didn’t stop to consider the other person, so take time to stop and consider how your actions and words will affect others.
6.) Don’t allow the Devil to live in your mind by making excuses that you can’t change the way you think. Meditate on my Words so that they can be brought to your mind instead of anger, dissatisfaction, pride, resentment, laziness, negativity, and complaining