When God Examines the Heart

Reflection

For a great many of us, life is fairly ordinary. We go to school, go to work, raise our families, take care of our homes, spend time with friends, and find a little room for entertainment along the way. We wake up, go about our responsibilities, come home, and do it all again. Most of the time, we don't look at our lives and think there is anything particularly wrong with the way we are living.

We are often very good at seeing ourselves as good people—yet the Lord sees deeper than we can see.

And perhaps that is part of the problem. Even someone who does things we clearly recognize as wrong will often have an explanation for why they did it. There was a reason. Someone else caused it. The situation was different. They had no choice. What they did wasn't really that bad. We have an incredible ability to make our own actions seem reasonable when we are the ones who have done them. I know I can.

Recently, I found myself thinking more deeply about my own goodness. I wasn't simply thinking about whether I had done something obviously wrong. I began considering the kind of person I believed myself to be. Then I went through a particular experience that revealed something in me that I had not recognized before. It wasn't something I had intentionally hidden. I didn't even know it was there. But once I saw it, I knew it needed to change.

That experience made Proverbs 16:2 feel very personal to me. "All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes." We can look at our own lives and believe our ways are right. We can examine our actions and come to the conclusion that our motives are good. Yet the Lord sees deeper than we can see. He weighs the spirits.

Examining the Heart

God sees what we cannot see about ourselves. He knows the thoughts behind our words. He knows the motives behind our actions. He knows when something that appears generous is mixed with a desire for recognition. He knows when our concern for someone else is mixed with pride. He knows when we are defending what is right and when we are really defending ourselves.

That doesn't mean everything we do is secretly wrong. It means that we don't know our own hearts as completely as God does. There are places within us that only the Lord can reveal.

A Courageous Prayer

And sometimes He does so through circumstances we would never have chosen. A conversation, a disappointment, a conflict, or an unexpected reaction can expose something we didn't know was there. Suddenly we see a weakness, an attitude, or a motive that had been quietly hiding beneath what we thought was perfectly acceptable behavior.

That realization can be uncomfortable, but it can also be a gift. Conviction can become an invitation to grow. This is one reason we should be careful about declaring ourselves righteous simply because we can point to things we do well. We can be kind in one area and selfish in another. We can be patient with one person and impatient with another. We can do something genuinely good while carrying a motive that needs to be surrendered to God.

Only the Lord can weigh the spirit perfectly, and that should make us humble. Instead of constantly examining everyone else's motives, perhaps we should allow God to examine our own. Instead of asking whether other people are living up to the standard, we can ask the Lord to show us where He wants to continue His work in us.

David prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts." That is a courageous prayer because it invites God to reveal what we may not be able to see for ourselves. And sometimes what He reveals will surprise us.

Our hope isn't found in discovering that we are secretly better than we thought—
our hope is found in discovering that Jesus is greater than we ever understood.

Before You Go

There is something wonderfully freeing about knowing that we don't have to prove our goodness to God. We can admit that there are things in our hearts that need to change because our standing before God does not depend upon our ability to discover and correct every hidden fault within ourselves. Our justification comes through Jesus Christ. We are made right with God through faith in Him, not because we have managed to become good enough on our own.

That doesn't make our sins or our weaknesses unimportant. Quite the opposite. Because we belong to Christ, we can face what He reveals without running away in shame. The same Lord who justifies us is also at work sanctifying us. He can reveal something today that we didn't recognize yesterday, and instead of seeing that revelation as proof that we have failed completely, we can see it as another place where His grace is at work.

So if the Lord has recently shown you something about yourself that needs to change, don't allow it to drive you away from Him. Bring it to Jesus. Confess it. Ask Him to change your heart, and trust the Holy Spirit to continue His work in you.

You may not be as good as you once thought you were. But you have a Savior who is far better than you ever imagined. And that is where our hope has always been.