“Psa. 139:23    Search me, O God, and know my heart!

                        Try me and know my thoughts!

24        And see if there be any grievous way in me,

                        and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version)

I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer we are challenged to pray for the next couple of weeks.

I don’t like this prayer. Too uncomfortable! I mean, do I really want God to search me?

Search me!

Of course, God already knows all about me. This is made clear within this same psalm.

“Psa. 139:0      To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

Psa. 139:1       O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

2          You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

                        you discern my thoughts from afar.

3          You search out my path and my lying down

                        and are acquainted with all my ways.

4          Even before a word is on my tongue,

                        behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

5          You hem me in, behind and before,

                        and lay your hand upon me.

6          Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

                        it is high; I cannot attain it.

Psa. 139:7       Where shall I go from your Spirit?

                        Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8          If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

                        If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9          If I take the wings of the morning

                        and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10        even there your hand shall lead me,

                        and your right hand shall hold me.

11        If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

                        and the light about me be night,”

12        even the darkness is not dark to you;

                        the night is bright as the day,

                        for darkness is as light with you.

Psa. 139:13     For you formed my inward parts;

                        you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

14        I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

             Wonderful are your works;

                        my soul knows it very well.

15        My frame was not hidden from you,

             when I was being made in secret,

                        intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16        Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

             in your book were written, every one of them,

                        the days that were formed for me,

                        when as yet there was none of them.”

I don’t need to pray to God to test and try me so that God will know me. He already does. I need to pray to God to test and try me so that I will know me. And here is the problem: I’m not so sure that I really want to know me. That is the ugly truth.

I certainly don’t want to know my weaknesses. If I know them, I might need to do something about them. I might have to trust God, be accountable for my weaknesses, and work on them.

I don’t even want to know my strengths. It’s more fun (and easier) to pretend that I am not strong. If I ask God to show me my strengths, I might have to stop putting myself down, and do something positive with those strengths.

And that is precisely where this psalm/prayer ends, isn’t it? “. . . and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Oh!

If I want to live my life in a way that lasts forever, I need to know what God already knows—precisely who I am. Whether or not this prayer makes me uncomfortable is not the issue. Living forever is.