Search Me, O God

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski

Scripture: Psalm 139:23a

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Insights: This week is Vacation Bible School (VBS) week at FBC Bowling Green.  We are Submerged and Finding Truth Below the Surface.  This weeks focal verse is Psalm 139:23-24.  With the kick off of VBS I sensed the Lord telling me to preach on these verses.  The first part of the verse twenty-three informs us the Lord is the One who searches and knows our hearts.  All too often we lie to ourselves regarding what is really going on in our lives.  I provided FBC Bowling Green a tool that we unpacked through all four points of the sermon.  The tool can be found in Avery Willis, Jr.’s The Disciple’s Personality from his Master Life series.  Willis provides us with an ACTION step which parallels these two verse beautifully.  The A of the ACTION step stands for Acknowledge the emotion.  In other words, as you are asking God to search your heart He is going to reveal to you what you are currently feeling.  So, you may be feeling angry, hurt, sad, lonely, afraid, happy, excited, anticipatory or any other kind of emotion.  When we feel these emotions, however, there is typically something going on deeper within us that is causing this emotion.  At this point, we move to the second step in the ACTION plan.  The C stands for Consider why you have it.  The it in this step is regarding the emotion.  For example, let’s imagine the emotion you were experiencing was fear.  What is actually lying underneath the surface that is churning this fear?  Have you done something and now you are afraid of the consequences?  Are you employed somewhere that is experiencing job cuts and you fear you may be next?  This consideration of what is really going on is the heart of this part of verse twenty-three.  The only One who can truly give you this answer is the Lord God Himself.  Turn to Him and ask Him to search your heart and reveal what is really going on inside of you; at your very depths.  Join me the remainder of this week as we continue to submerge below the surface of our lives to find the truth of our hearts.

Questions:

1. What emotion have you acknowledged is affecting your life at the moment?

2. When you considered the underlying cause behind the emotion, what did you discover?

Prayer: Father, You truly do know my heart better than I do.  Help me grow in Your grace and truly know what is going on deep within my very soul.  Amen.

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