Psalm 139:23-34

I read through Psalm 139 several times, and picked up some really interesting things I'd missed before. I thought about how this was a psalm of David and how it represented his life - the good and bad choices/desires as well as his passionate heart for God. i thought it was especially interesting that it was "for the director of music" - I felt like it was written especially for me, which in a sense it absolutely was.

23 Search me, O 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.

Verses 23-24 are definitely the most personally important verses of this psalm - they sum up its entire message. Here, David has counted the myriad ways in which God intimately knows him, and asks that He would calm his fears and fix his offenses. It can seem frightening to realize that every wrongful thought and feeling is laid like an open book before God, but David understood that it was this complete transparency that allowed him to have such communion with the Creator. David realizes his follies and worries, and reminds himself that even though God knows every detail of his life (both good and bad included!), He regards David with nothing but perfect Love!

This is true for all of us. There is no escaping God -- he invades our lives, intruding when we would prefer to attend to our own affairs and constantly offering us reminders that this world and this life are not ours, but His. We must submit and draw close, we must let Him search and test us. We must follow His path set before us and rejoice in the limitless beauty of His creation and love.