Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way.

—Psalm 139:23-24

I’ve never been big on New Year’s Resolutions. Even as a middle schooler, I refused to make them because half of the conversation surrounding them was always focused on how quickly most people gave up on them. And nonetheless, I found myself excited to try to build some new habits this year with my Apple-watch-wannabe that I got for Christmas. (For the record, I love it even more for not being an actual Apple watch.)

Yesterday, after driving home from holiday fun with the family, I found that I’d only walked about 1,000 steps, and since I was already beginning to feel the stress of getting back into my regular schedule, I decided to go for a walk.

I live in a neighborhood that’s a perfect half-mile loop just off a small state highway. It’s relatively quiet and trees line much of the way, covering the neighborhood in the whistle of the wind through the branches and the rustle of leaves skittering across the road. The trees and the quiet of the neighborhood create an atmosphere that leads me into rest and makes me want to talk to God. Yesterday, the topic of conversation was all the work to be done before my upcoming book launch (see my website’s home page for more details).

It’s a topic that frustrates me because it touches on a concept I’ve struggled with for ages––being diligent in the work God’s given me to do without it turning into me trying to achieve my goals in my own power. I genuinely don’t understand where the balance is and it frustrates me. It seems like there’s some hidden formula I don’t know about or a feeling I can’t recognize that would let me know I’m getting it right, but whatever the case, I always feel like I’m missing the mark.

It was during this walk with God, while I was wondering if there was some guarded part of my heart that made this discernment so difficult for me, that the end of Psalm 139 came to mind. 

It’s a strange request that David makes. We normally take it for granted that we know ourselves. It’s a point of pride for many people that we should get to make our own decisions for us and our families specifically because we know what’s best for us. But if we stop to think about it, most of us can probably think of a time when we surprised ourselves, either with how well we handled a situation…or with how poorly we managed it. We don’t know ourselves nearly as well as I think we believe we do.

It’s also a pretty scary request to make. When David asks God to search him and know him, the word know is the same word used to describe when Adam knew his wife Even and a few months later they had Cain. It’s a deep, intimate knowing. When speaking in human terms, it means to know every part of someone physically, but when we’re talking about God, that knowing goes so much deeper than that.

When David invites God to know him, he’s holding nothing back. It’s an invitation for God to dive deep and root out even the deepest, darkest places where sin is hiding. Every part of his heart, mind, and spirit is fair game. 

Thinking about offering God that kind of access to myself, even though I know I’ve been accepted through the work of Christ, was initially intimidating. There’s a lot down there that could lead someone to reject me, but if that’s what I’m focusing on, then there’s also something amazing that I’m missing out on.

There are two sides to truly, deeply knowing someone or being known by someone. The first is the scary part––the risk that they’ll see something they just can’t stand and run away. But on the other side of that risk is something amazing. An intimacy and a level of acceptance that runs so far deeper than our failures and flaws.

This, I think, is the best New Year’s resolution we could come up with––to fling open the door to hearts and minds and invite God to have free reign, knowing that the only thing that could come from letting Him in is greater intimacy with the Giver of life and peace and hope and goodness.