Praise God for Prying Eyes

“If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.” (Ps 44:20-21 AV)

 This is not a bad thing.  For the LORD to search us out may be uncomfortable, but it is most necessary.  Strange gods begin with forgetting God.  This suggests the LORD confronts our forgetting Him before He confronts us again with going after strange gods.  I for one am so thankful I have a God that searches the secrets of my heart.  Those secrets could be secrets I am withholding for plain view.  They are secrets from others.  Or, they are secrets from me.  I don’t always see the reality of my own heart.  This is to what I think David is referring.  One thing is clear.  To God, there are no secrets.  He sees them all.  He knows exactly where my heart is at any given moment.  He knows if I have forgotten Him long before I realize that I have.  He knows long before I get there that I might be going after strange gods.  God does not search out the secrets of my heart for His benefit.  He already knows.  He uncovers them that I might discover what I do not realize.  God is infinitely more concerned with our spiritual well-being than we are and will work without stopping to see to it we enjoy the blessings of walking with Him.

About three years ago, my wife and I embarked on a journey whose end is still not known.  My doctor is the best clinician there is.  He orders lab work upon lab work.  I had been complaining of MS-type symptoms and because brain issues run in our family, he ordered several tests.  I met with a neurologist who also order several tests.   I went through some cognitive tests.  I had several MRIs.  With and without contrast.  There was a test for epilepsy.  There were compression tests.  There were bone scans.  The short of it is, through all these tests we discovered I had cerebral small vessel disease.  It is a disease common among much older adults than I.  My case is hereditary.  What this means is my brain does not get as much oxygen as someone my age would normally enjoy.  There is no cure, but there are several treatments.  One is to reduce bad cholesterol.  Apparently, the ratio of good to bad cholesterol is what the doctors look for.  The closer these two numbers are, the better the situation.  I didn’t have bad numbers for bad cholesterol, but my good cholesterol is habitually low.  Another hereditary feature.  So, on to a statin, I went.  As the medication did its magic, I noticed a return of cognitive function and balance.  One of the best treatments is rest.  A good night’s sleep.  Normally, I am a very light sleeper and my mind is instantly awake and working.  So, the doctor prescribed this awesome medication which is a non-habit-forming medication that is used for another condition but is used off-label for sleep assistance.  I haven’t slept this good in my whole life.  But here is the point.  I was totally unaware of what was causing my issues.  To me, it was a secret.  It took someone who knew a whole lot more than I did to reveal the secrets of my health that explained the symptoms.

The same is true with the need for the LORD to do some diagnosis of His own.  We don’t know ourselves well enough to self-doctor.  We need someone who knows us better than we know ourselves.  We need our Creator to examine the secrets of our hearts to reveal the root causes of some of our problems.  We cannot see what we do not know.  It takes someone who knows all things to show us what we cannot see.  This is so very important.  As long as our souls are sin-sick, we need the great Physician to examine our hearts and show us what is causing all our problems.  I, for one, am so thankful I have a Creator who will not give up on me.  I, for one, and so grateful God does not lose His patience and continues to illumine to me all those secret places of my heart.  This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Word.  By the word of God and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the saint learns things about himself he would otherwise never know.  How we choose to respond determines God’s actions on our part.  Praise the LORD He cares!  Praise the LORD He will not abandon us to ourselves.  Praise the LORD He continues His searching ministry that we do not remain the same as we always have been.  Praise the LORD for the divine investigation that reveals the secrets of the heart.