Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Let God Search Your Heart | The Writings | Psalm 139

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Are you willing to let God search your heart? Have we passed God's test? Are you seeking out help? In today's episode, Tanya shares how Psalm 139 encourages us to depend on the all-knowing God who loves us. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 139

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Recognizing our limits is a hard pill to swallow. What about all those responsibilities? What about all those people depending on us? What would happen to them if we dropped the ball? If this is the story you tell yourself, you're not alone.

King David, someone with a lot of responsibility, and many people depending on him, felt the same way when he wrote Psalm 139. This psalm where David wrestles between wanting to be independent and dependent has been giving Christians comfort for centuries. Surprisingly, the hardest things to submit to God are the ordinary, the unremarkable ones, the list, emails, conversations, decisions, and expectations that outline our days. You're not unaware of God in general, but the responsibilities blend together, making you feel like you live in a house of cards built by you, held up by you,

and on the brink of toppling because of you. Let Psalm 139 show you who the king of your life is. If you don't fill your mind with the word of God, the enemy will fill it with stress, worry, anxiety, and temptation. The Bible doesn't say a low level of stress and anxiety is a normal part of life you just have to deal with. Rather, the Bible says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me on the path of everlasting life. It can feel scary to pray this kind of prayer. What if God really does search you and test you and point out things that offend him? Are you willing to walk down that road?

Search me, O God, and know my heart. Now, if you were going to take a big trip, the first thing you would probably do was some research. You would want to know where to stay, how far it is from the airport, and how safe the area is for walking and sightseeing. When you ask God to search your heart, he's not doing the research, but he is revealing what he already knows about you to you. Psalm 139 opens with David saying, O Lord, you have searched and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. There are three levels of being known. The first level is observation. This is what others see about you. They see how you react to challenges, how you respond to conflict, and how you handle success.

They see what you wear, and they hear what you say. As observers, others see what you choose to portray. The second level is inward knowledge. This is what you know about yourself. Your hopes, dreams, goals, regrets. You experience and understand your own feelings and thoughts. The outside world doesn't know them unless you share them or expose them. Now the Bible doesn't tell you what the culture does,

that you find your inward truth if you search within. The Bible tells you you're limited in your knowledge, even about yourself. That brings us to the third level. knowledge only God has. Verses 5 and 6 from Psalm 139 say, You hem me in, behind him before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it.

Asking God to search your hearts is recognizing that God is omniscient. He knows everything, including what you do not even know about yourself. It is impossible to handle all that God knows. But you can ask him to show you, what you need to know. Paul talks about that in Acts 2618 when he teaches that Jesus was sent to the world to open our eyes so we can turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Sometimes I wonder if the turmoil and tension inside my own heart is portrayed in my words. I can say things that don't sound or look mean on the outside while feeling really mean in my heart.

And I wonder, is it obvious how I feel? This Psalm is making a point. You can wear a mask and be what you think others want you to be, or you can ask God to search your heart and turn you from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God on the inside. The next phrase is test me and know my anxious thoughts. We talk about test a lot in our house because we have high school and college students.

The ACT is an important test in the Midwest to enforce, decisions about where you can go to college. When our kids take the ACT, it gives feedback through a score about where their academic strengths are, and then those strengths line up with college admissions and scholarships. In a fairly straightforward way, that number tells you where you can go and what you can afford for college. No wonder the test is so anxiety-producing. When you ask God to test you and know your anxious thoughts. You are allowing His Word to be the source of information. You build your life and your future around. You aren't defined by your work title, your children, or what other people think or say about you. Your anxious thoughts find their rest in God's knowledge of your present and your

future. And God's word is straightforward about what really concerns you. The test results are in. In John 143, Jesus says, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. We don't know yet what two of our kids will do after graduation. We don't know who any of them will marry or what jobs they will have. Even the ACT can't tell us that. But we know that God is faithful to his promises and their big stories

and ultimately their eternities are safe with him. The third phrase and the last one. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me on the path of everlasting life. When I need to give someone feedback, I often ask Eric for advice, which means I really just want to verbally process how I'm going to say what's already in my head. Let me just tell you I'm not actually asking for advice. But in this area, I have learned to take it anyway, because Eric says, do you want someone to give you feedback? To which I answer, I just want them to tell me. I just want to be told.

Don't beat around the bush and make me look for clues about how you really feel. When it comes to the things in my life that are unholy and unpleasing to God, do I want to be told? If I did, I would know where to look. I would read his word and I would surrender to what it says. I would ask for forgiveness and not keep repeating the same sins. But I don't do these things on my own. I need God's help to recognize my feelings. I need God's help to work through them in prayer. I need God's help to discern what needs to change in my relationships, habits,

and patterns. And I need God's help to look toward tomorrow and invite him into each hour and all the ordinary, unremarkable things that fill up my day. As we wrap up Psalm 139, I just want to tell you that this Psalm is very encouraging to me as a mom. It helps me transform my narrative from I could have and I should have and I can and I will to something much more honest and realistic. Psalm 139 helps me look back and say, I did all that I could. It helps me look at today and say, I'm doing all that I can.

Psalm 139 reminds me that God is all knowing, God is all present, God is all powerful, and I don't have to be. If I need to sleep, that is normal for a human. If there are things I don't know, that is totally okay. If there are places I can't be, that is a reasonable expectation. I hope when I am limited in my time and energy and knowledge, my kids see that God is the better king. What about you? What's the place that makes you feel like you need to have control? Survey the responsibilities and worries that weigh you down. Ask God to search your thoughts about those areas and reveal himself to you, increasing your dependence on him as your life unfolds.