Full Permission

SCRIPTURE: 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 NIV

THOUGHT: Sometimes I go to the doctor grudgingly. Recently, it was a neurosurgeon. I’d had another MRI of my spine and, having seen those pictures once, wasn’t really keen to do it again.

So I ask myself, does God have full permission to examine me and let me know what he finds? Well, of course he doesn’t need permission – he already knows all the thoughts and intents of my heart, being the omniscient God that he is. He has the full MRI, so to speak. But listening to what he finds there is a different matter. He’s given me some difficult news before and he probably will again, and it would be in my best interests to not go grudgingly.

I love how the prophet Micah approached God when he knew the MRI showed anxious thoughts and offensive ways. Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath, until he pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness (Micah 7:9). There is a sense of dignity in that; a deep belief that being brought into the light of exposure before our Father is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. The same one who examines and judges, pleads our case and upholds our cause.

Full permission granted.

PRAYER: In the end, Father, I say with the Psalmist of old: The Lord will vindicate me; your love, Lord, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands. (Psalm 138:8)