The Gutsy Prayer Hard to Offer

A friend recently told me that Psalm 139:23-24, were among her favorite passages in the Psalms.

Search me, O 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 love those verses, too. But it takes guts to pray the petitions they contain, lots more than I have most of the time.

I can get so accustomed to my favorite sins that I don't want God to point them out.

If I let God do show me and confront me regarding my favorite sins, He'll also call me to repent and change my ways.

I've read about people who stopped praying because they knew that if they really came into God's presence--and not just with pro forma, perfunctory prayers--they might have such an uncomfortable confrontation and with God's call and command to change.

My observation is that even changes we want in our lives are hard. But changing when God wants us to and when the change is the last thing we want to make is downright distasteful.

When a sin takes root in us, it's not just hard to give up the sin. It's hard to want to give up on the sin.

So much of getting spiritually right with God is getting to the point, helpless though we are to save ourselves, that we want Christ more than we want our favorite sins, to the point where we want eternity more than we want our favorite sinful thought patterns.

So, I think Psalm 139:23-24 is amazing. I only pray God will graciously give me the gutsy faith needed to pray it and mean it.