Prayer for Divine Searching
Lord, many times I am aweary quite
Of my own self, my sin and vanity j Yet be not thou, or I am lost outright, Weary of me.
And hate against myself I often bear,
And enter with myself in fierce debate j Take thou my part against myself, nor share In that just hate.
Best friends might loathe us, if what things perverse
We know of our own selves they also knew j Lord, Holy One! if thou who knowest worse, Should loathe us, too!
Archbishop Trench.
In one of the psalms there is an intense and deeply* earnest prayer for divine searching: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” If we make this prayer sincerely, out of our heart, it will bring us into very close quarters with God. It will open every
226 chamber, every corner, every nook and cranny of our life to the eye that is omniscient.
It takes courage to pray this prayer. Not all men can do it. Many people fear to look into their own heart. If by some divine flash we were made to see ourselves as we are, all the evil that is in us, all the hideous things that lurk in the depths of our being, our faces would blanch into deathly paleness.
It takes boldness to ask God to search one’s inner life and show one one’s sins. It takes honesty, too, to pray this prayer. It means that every wrong thing we find in our heart, under the calcium light of God’s word and Spirit, we will give up and cast out. Some people do not want to find their sins, because they do not want to give them up. We cannot pray this prayer if we are not willing and eager to have Christ save us from whatever evil way, whatever sinful habit, feeling, disposition, or temper we discover in ourselves.
There is another thing to mark in this prayer. We ask God to search us. An ancient, much-praised maxim was, “Know thyself.” But no man can really know himself, in the depths of his being, unless God holds the lamp to shine in the darkness. None but God can search us and show us to ourselves.
This is not a prayer that our neighbors may search us. Men are willing enough, ofttimes, to judge their fellow-men, to expose their faults, and proclaim their sins. It is easier for most of us to confess other people’s sins than our own. The Pharisee was quite free in searching the publican and declaring his wrong-doings, though he said nothing of his own. We might find those who would be willing to search us and point out our blemishes, but this is not what we are taught to do. Men’s judgments are imperfect, sometimes uncharitable, even unjust. There are lives that go down under men’s condemnation whom love would save. At the best, men are only very partial judges. They cannot see our motives, and ofttimes they condemn as wrong that which is noble and beautiful; or they approve as right and praiseworthy that which before God is unworthy. It is not enough to ask men to search us and to try us. If they should approve and commend us their approval might be of no value to us.
But there is One who is perfect in wisdom, love and righteousness, and whose judgments are unerring. We should always want to know what he thinks of our acts, words and thoughts. Though all the world applaud what we do, and praise us without stint, if on his face there
228 is no mark of approval — if we see there the shadow of disapproval, what a mockery is men’s applause! If the world sneer, condemn and blame; if men have only scorn and reproach; and if meanwhile, turning our eyes toward the heavenly throne, we see in the divine face the smile of approval, what need we care for the frowns of men? It is to God we should turn for the searching of our life. No human approval can bless when he does not bless. No human sentence can bind when he sets at liberty. It is better always to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. God is kindlier and juster than men. Nobody understands us as Christ does. Nobody knows our infirmities as Christ knows them, and no one has such patience with them as he has. He knows human life — this blessed Lord of ours — by actual experience. He was tempted in all points like as we are; he knows how hard it is to resist temptation and to be good. He knows all the elements that enter into human struggle, and therefore is fitted for sympathy. We need not be afraid to open our heart to him, for he will never be unjust with us. We need not fear to ask him to search us, for if we truly desire to give up our sins when we discover them, we shall find him most merciful and gracious.
All our life is open to God’s eye. The old psalm makes this wonderfully clear. “Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising.” God’s eye is upon us in our every movement, in our resting and in our working. fe Thou understandest my thought afar off.” He knows our thought not only when it has taken final form, but in its first dim rising. He sees the whole working of our mind, all our imaginations, feelings, desires, the secret springs of our heart, out of which flow all the streams of thought, fancy, wish and act. Sometimes we come to the brink and look down into the depths of our own being, and we see things that there appal us. We get glimpses of motives which seem to blot the beauty of our fairest deeds. We see shadowy shapes of evil lurking there that are hideous to our eyes. We find in the abysses of our own nature possibilities of sin that startle us. But all that our eyes see in our hearts, even in glimpses, God sees continually, and far more. He knows us infinitely better than we can know ourselves.
“Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.”
God does not have to wait, as our neighbors
230 do, until we speak to know what is in our mind. The silent man may conceal his thoughts from his fellows, but he cannot conceal them from God. Unspoken thoughts are open to him. Words may hide the truth, disguise it or color it, but God knows the real thought that is in the word. Neither in the depths of the blue heavens, nor in the dark abyss of the grave, can one hide away from God. If we could take the morning sunbeams for wings and fly away on them with all the swiftness of light to the remotest bounds of space, we could not get beyond the reach of the divine eye. If we creep into darkness so deep and dense that no human eye can see us, still God sees us as clearly as if we stood in the bright noon-day sunshine. Darkness hides not from him. Night shines to his eye as brightly as day.
To many people this thought of God’s omniscience is one to produce only fear and terror. They wish they could hide from him, or veil their life from him, and flee to some place where he could not find them. They do not think of this truth as a comforting one, but as one to alarm them. To those who are living in sin, unreconciled to God, it surely is full of startling terror. Sin always wants to hide from God. But to believers in Christ this truth of the om-
231 niscience of God is one of great comfort. It is divine love that knows all our thoughts afar off and our words before they are spoken, and that besets us behind and before. When we are told that we cannot flee from God’s presence nor be in any place where he is not, it is meant to be a comfort. No greater blessing could be imagined than this. We can never be cast beyond the reach of his eye, nor out of his presence, nor beyond the clasp of his love. If by some sudden calamity we should be swept away to the uttermost parts of the earth, where no human friend can see us, we would still find God there, and his hand would lead us, and his right hand would hold us. Thus the truth is one of immeasurable comfort and blessing to us.
The psalm speaks also of the preciousness of God’s thoughts toward his people. It is wonderful that the great God should think about us at all. It seems impossible, when we remember his holiness and our sinfulness, his glory and our littleness, that he should ever think of us. It is pleasant for us to learn that some one on earth whom we esteem highly has been thinking about us. The greater the person is, the more honored and distinguished among men, the more does it mean to us to discover that he has been thinking about us, that he is interested in us, that he cares
232 for us in our need and trouble, and that he has been planning and thinking for our good.
The most shining hour in any life is the one in which the truth breaks upon the consciousness that God loves, when one can say, “God loves me.” One of the sweetest comforts that ever comes to any one on earth is the revelation, “God is thinking about me as really as ever my mother did.” It is true, too. God thinks about us. He is our Father, and cannot but think of his children. Nor is it a mere occasional thought that he gives to us; more in number than are the sands are his thoughts toward us. No earthly father thinks about his best beloved child so often as he goes about, busy in the affairs of his life, as God thinks of each one of us, even when caring for all the worlds. When we are in joy he thinks of us, watches us and breathes his benedictions into our gladness. When we are in danger, he thinks about us, and reaches out his hand to deliver us. When we are in sorrow, he thinks of us, pitying us as a father pities his child, comforting like a mother, with compassionate love.
One who was wrecked tells how he clung in the water to a piece of a mast, but floating off in the waves was soon utterly alone in the midst .of the sea. He says the sense of his utter lone-
233 liness was the most awful element in his experience in those dreadful hours. In all the wide expanse there was no eye to see him, no heart to give him a thought of care or pity. But God’s eye saw him even there; God thought about him. Wherever we are, in whatever loneliness, in whatever distress or danger, we may say, “I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me.”
No doubt there are things in us of which God does not approve. His eyes see blots in our fairest deeds. It is said that the finest polishing men can give to steel, to a needle, for example, reveals, under a microscope, roughnesses and irregularities which greatly mar its perfectness. So, to God’s eye, the most lovely human life reveals many flaws and blemishes. No doubt our most devout worship has in it much sin. Our most unselfish love is stained by selfishness. Our best work is blotched by evil. A painter saw an ugly stain on the wall he had been frescoing. He took a wet cloth to remove it, but the cloth was itself soiled and left a blotch worse than that the painter had sought to remove. May it not be so with much of our work on other lives? Our own hands are unclean, and they stain where we thought to cleanse and leave touches of beauty. We know
234 enough of our own heart to be sure that all is not with us as it ought to be. Are we willing to have God search us and try our thoughts? Then are we willing to put away all the evil that God, by his word and Spirit, may disclose to us in ourselves?
If we are truly seeking to be fashioned into the divine image, nothing must be allowed to remain in our life which is not entirely in harmony with the divine thought for us. The smallest flaw that we discover must be taken out. The least speck of fault must be corrected. The most minute line of new possible likeness to Christ that we discern we must seek to put into our character. We should be eager, therefore, always, to have God search us, that we may be led ever upward toward holier life.
It is one of the infinite blessings of our life that God does search us and try our ways. If he did not we should never get home. In our lives, at the best, there is a great deal of chaff to a very little wheat; if the chaff is not gotten out in some way, we shall never be fit for God’s garner. Winnowing may be a painful process, but it is a blessed one, for in the end it leaves us cleansed and prepared for the holy life of heaven. So when God searches us and winnows us, we should be humble and quiet before him,
*35 submitting to him. We should continually make our prayer to him that he would search us and try us, and see if there be any wicked way in us, and then lead us in the way everlasting.
“Thou Searcher of all hearts, look down and see, Not if the chaff doth most abound in me, But if there be a tithe of grain for thee — A tithe for thee, in all the unfruitful place! All the day long before the winds of grace My chaff upriseth in thy patient face. My lying down, my path, my ways how poor, My wasted moments husks bestrew my floor j And still thou searchest by the garner door. Content to stoop, if so upon the ground One grain of truth, one ear of love be found, So doth thy patience, dearest Lord, abound!”