Psalms of Comfort 4: Psalm 139
Psalm 139
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Quite often we don’t want other people to know what we are thinking. Either we don’t want to hurt their feelings, or we don’t want to fall out with them, or we don’t want to reveal our insecurities or that we are afraid of something.
There was a quite amusing film with the actor Jim Carrey called Liar Liar. Carey is a fast talking lawyer who is a habitual liar and his young son makes a birthday wish that his Dad would tell the truth for one day. The wish comes true and boy, does he get into trouble, as his thoughts are revealed to all. Eventually the truth changes him.
Jim Carrey in ‘Liar Liar’
We keep these anxieties to ourselves. Some people go to counselling or have therapists when things are bothering them and they want to make sense of things. It is great to have a friend who we can offload to — a lot cheaper than a therapist. We always feel better when we offload like that, the burden is shared. But even then there may be some things we are unwilling to share.
Because God knows our thoughts before we think them, nothing is hidden from him. We might take the time in our daily prayer time or devotional with God to share our thoughts with Him and then flick the switch and get on with our day. Imagine considering every moment as a potential time of communion with God.
By the time your life is over, you will spend six months waiting in your car, eight months opening junk mail, a year and a half looking for lost things and about 5 years waiting in various lines. Why don’t you give these moments to God instead? What better way to use these mundane moments and turn them into useful moments.
By giving God your thoughts and asking him to examine our hearts on a regular basis we can actually live out what the Apostle Paul tells us; to pray continually. The result of that is that we share our burdens with God—and what better counsellor to have?
