It happened one morning while I was on my computer, going through some e-mails. I noticed a pop-up dialogue box with this message: “Three people searched you.” I wondered what that meant exactly, but I sure wasn’t going to click on it to find out. Were there really three people looking for me? I doubt it, but isn’t it kind of spooky how exposed we are while online? I have heard that through sophisticated spy-ware programs, you can be searched, scanned, even photographed by your own camera without your consent! (Hmm … searched, scanned, photographed – it sounds like what happens when you go through a TSA security check-point!) So, how did I feel when I first read that message? Like I was being watched, monitored …

     Then, last week, I was doing my Treasures Old & New assigned Bible readings and I read another message about being “searched.” No, it wasn’t a “pop-up” message but it sure popped off the page to me! It was Psalm 139 – “O LORD, you have searched me and known me!” I kept reading and was reminded of how thoroughly and comprehensively God searches and knows each one of us – “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 … How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (139.1-4,17) He knows everything about us – every move we make, every word we speak (before we speak it), every thought we think (before we think it), every habit, propensity and tendency – and He knew us before we were even thought of, humanly speaking (139.13-16). And God doesn’t just know everything about us because He can; He knows everything about us because He cares!

     Reading on, we come to the conclusion and climax of Psalm 139. David turns to God with open mind, open heart and open life. He invites, even implores God to search him, scan him, examine him: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (139.23-24). What David is really asking God is not just to be KNOWN, but to be SHOWN what His findings are – his spiritual condition before God – and anything he would need to correct.

     God knows us in these same ways – and He knows our sins and failures too – but the question is, do WE know them? Maybe we should echo David’s prayer – inviting God to “search” us, know us and show us our ways, so we can make the necessary corrections and adjustments (with His help) and be led by Him “in the way everlasting.”

     So, brothers and sisters and friends, consider this your notification that “you’ve been searched” – and not by a TSA official or by some intrusive computer program, but by an Almighty, all-knowing, all-loving God and Father.