How Badly Do I Want God to Work in My Life?

In Psalm 139 David prays a most challenging request of God. This Psalm is usually referred to in the context of the sanctity of human life, and it does speak to that. However by the time we reach the end of the psalm, the writer asks something that almost seems crazy. He spends the entire passage describing in detail how intimately God knows him. There is nothing about David, including what he will eventually do, that God does not know well. The realization of God's knowledge and power is almost too much for David to grasp. He cannot fathom the depths of God's interest in and love for him. After a lengthy description of what God is really like David prays: "O Lord, search me and know me; try me and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." So what is he really praying? He is asking God to show him what God already knows about his heart. He even goes so far as to say "test me." When you shake a water bottle, why does water come out? The first answer is usually "because you shook it." But the right answer is because water was in the bottle. When you shake a bottle, you only get out of it what is already inside. That is the same with us. Jesus said in Matthew 15:19 that it is from out of the heart come all sorts of sin and impurity. Why do I think, say, and do that which is offensive or "hurtful" to God and others? Because that is what was already in my heart. So David is asking God to test him, or "shake the bottle" so that David can see what is really in his heart that is offensive to God and hurtful to those around. He is asking God to put pressure on him, to shake him so that David can see what God already sees. And then he asks God to produce godly character in him; character that will last all through eternity. I am not so sure I would pray this way since Jesus promised we would have trouble enough in this life (John 16:33). Yet this is how serious David is about spiritual growth and pleasing the Lord.