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Search, Try, Lead

             Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

I know I’ve done this passage before. It’s from a favorite psalm, it’s the passage of the day on Biblegateway.com, and, it goes nicely with yesterday’s thoughts. In fact, it’s a sort of an “outside the forest” view of the situation. Inside the forest, we don’t ask God to search our hearts or test our thoughts because we’re in our hearts and thoughts and doing the Chicken Little routine, partly because that’s where things can fall on our heads. When we’re outside the forest, we can ask God to search, test, and lead

The good news is that outside of the situations that while we may need to excuse ourselves, pitch our fits, and return – described yesterday – knowing that our little fits are nothing more than a way to use energy and calm down so we can submit to being searched, tested, and led. The searching, testing, and leading are integral parts of the process. They’re not done for God’s sake. They’re done for ours, and the process is easier for us if we’re not kicking and screaming, or even whimpering and whining. If that means excusing ourselves to throw an abbreviated temper tantrum so we can let God work, so be it. It would be best if we didn’t feel the anxiety, but even Jesus visited Gethsemane.

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