Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Psalm 139:23-24 (NASB)
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.
We discussed Lent as a season of reflection and repentance a couple of weeks ago. Psalm 139 is a good Psalm to meditate on, asking the Lord is probe us and reveal what needs to change.
Search Me
The Psalm opens, “O LORD, you have searched me and known me!” (Psalm 139:1). By ending the Psalm with the request to search him, David (the author) comes full circle. The Psalm starts by stating how God knows him intimately. It transitions to proclaiming that no matter where he goes, God is with him. He then says God formed him in the womb and knew him before birth. He exclaims, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God” (Psalm 139:17a).
Then the Psalm takes a sharp turn, asking God to slay his enemies. I wonder if David, pondering God’s thoughts, started to ask, “God, why have you allowed my enemies to do this? If you know me so well, why are these bad things happening?” After declaring his hatred for his enemies, he prays the final two verses quoted above. Perhaps David recognized that his prayer had gotten off track. Have you ever been praying and your mind wandered?
Test Me
David asks God to test him. This is a different word than used to describe Abraham’s test to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:1). Literally, this word describes the testing of metals, but it is typically used metaphorically to test people, ascertaining their character. We can see this imagery at play: “The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, / and the LORD tests hearts” (Proverbs 17:3). The word appears in parallel with refining, too. God will “refine them as one refines silver and test them as gold is tested” (Zechariah 13:9, see also Psalm 66:10). God does not test merely to put pressure on us. He wants to reveal what’s in our hearts so he can transform and refine us.
While God usually criticizes when we test him (Psalm 95:9, Malachi 3:15), on one occasion God asks his people to test him by bringing the full tithe to him (Malachi 3:10). By giving to him, we are trusting he will take care of us.
While testing sounds unpleasant or unfair, the goal is to reveal the quality of what is being tested. For the wicked, it will not end well. For the righteous, their faithfulness will be revealed. Even Job, amidst such suffering, affirms that God’s testing will reveal his character (Job 23:10).
Heart and Mind
The prophet Jeremiah says something similar about God searching and testing us (using the same Hebrew words):
“I the LORD search the heart
Jeremiah 17:10
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Others speak of God testing the “heart and mind” (Psalm 26:2, Jeremiah 11:20, 20:12). The people of Israel did not have the same concept of heart and mind as we do today. In all of these passages, the Hebrew is literally “kidneys and heart”. To them, the kidneys are like how we refer to our gut (like saying I have a “gut feeling”), our intuition. In Psalm 139:13 David says God “formed my inward parts” using the same word. They viewed the heart as the seat of emotion and thoughts. The point is that God tests all our thoughts, feelings, motivations, and other inward murmurings. He understands better what is going on inside of us better than we know ourselves.
David, however, uses heart and “anxious thoughts”. The latter is a single Hebrew word (sarapim) used only one other time: “When the cares (sarapim) of my heart are many, / your consolations cheer my soul” (Psalm 94:19; “heart” here is yet a different word, one’s general innards). These are not just any thoughts; they are the things he cares and worries about.
The Right Way
David contrasts two ways: the way of hurt/toil and the way of eternity. In what ways do we go that ultimately hurt us? “There is a way that appears to be right, / but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). By asking God to search us and reveal our destructive thoughts, we ask for him to guide us in a way that will bring life.
To Ponder…
Is God’s testing a good or bad thing? How is your heart? Is everything that goes on inside of you pleasing to the Lord or does he need to refine something? Are there any worries you need him to address?
Ask our gracious Lord to reveal what you need to work on. Then repent! Seek to turn that area of your life around to set you on the right way to honor him.
I am sure your mom remembers that this is one of three sets of verses that we memorized as children, and used as closing prayers after dinner. Our dad would simply say “Search” or “Create” or “Let” and we would know which verses to recite.
I can’t imaging that we understood the concept of searching our hearts when we were children, but it was a wonderful idea to plant in our hearts to be used when we were older.