“See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Ps 139:24
This prayer reveals a deeper piety than I had at first supposed.
If David’s words are honest—and I believe they are—David confesses that he is at the moment unaware of anything that grieves the Lord. That is a high, though a normal, standard of living for the believer. At the same time, David is no surface saint and therefore is aware that there may be things in his life that do grieve God, things as yet unknown to him.
David knows that such errors of life, though still undiscovered, hinder the free moving of the Spirit. Such undiscovered hindrances will hinder both the development of piety and the outreach of service. Heartily desirous that God be fully glorified in his heart and life, David begs God to inform him of those secret faults that bother others and that Satan employs to advantage.
This prayer reveals David’s open spirit. For in the petition David makes the promise to God that if God will renounce them and allow God to lead him in the way everlasting. What a humble and teachable spirit!
Many of us become “wise” and “confirmed” saints too soon. We believe we know God’s estimate of us, that He has revealed to us all we need to know, that no major adjustments to His will or purpose are ahead. Hence, we do not take the place of children asking for advice, meekly seeking ever to be more like God. Thus we shut out our souls from further development. Our convictions of conduct and patterns of piety reflect what we believed to be God’s will ten or twenty years ago. We have not dared to ask God to review our lives lately, to revise and recast them any way He wishes. We are living and acting on “has been” convictions.
Worse still, some of us would not even need to ask God what thing in our lives grieved Him. A little refection would overwhelm us with memories of carelessness, sharp speech, ugly temper, worldly desires and conformities, prayerlessness, lack of love and consideration toward our Christian brethren, and a cold uninterested heart so far as the unsaved are concerned. We are aware of these things. Dare we face them? Dare we name them? Dare we confess them?
Are we really interested in revival? Then let us adjust before God and before others, those things that we know need adjustment. Then we can ask God to reveal to us the unknown blunders and shortcomings that we may renounce them also and yoke up more closely with the God of Calvary and of Pentecost.
--George E. Failing
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