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The Best Treasure Hunt Ever (And The Key You’ll Need to Find It)

Back in the 1980’s some people became convinced the tension between the U.S.S.R. and the United States would lead to WWIII and nuclear disaster.

My parents were among them.

So were my husband, Leif’s parents.

Both responded by burying treasures in the yard. They dug holes and buried Bibles, food, and silver coins. My parents even built a bomb shelter. We canned corn. We dug a well. We lived a crazy awesome life (and I share the hilarious details in The Organic God).

Years passed. The Cold War ended.

But my beloved Mom couldn’t find her precious silver coins. Her treasure map wasn’t detailed enough. Our front lawn looked like a scene from gophers gone wild.

Holes everywhere.

I’m not sure she ever found those silver coins. Maybe some day someone in the mountains of North Carolina will stumble on them and enjoy a great afternoon at an arcade.

This giggly memory reminds me of a more contemporary treasure hunt that’s going on between God and us.

This hunt begins with the words, “Search me and know my heart.”

When we whisper, write, or color those words, do we realize the-strap-on-your-helmet-buckle-up words what we’re saying?

Psalm 139 begins, “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.”

The search has taken place.

The holes dug.

That which was below the surface rises to the top.

Every detail laid bare.

Unspoken thoughts revealed.

False accusations cast.

Objections issued.

After seeking, searching, digging, the sentence—the big discovery—waits in the Lord’s hands.

The prayer, “Search me and know my heart,” invites God to enter a treasure hunt in the recesses of our souls even when we’ve lost the map to life.

The process scares. What will the Holy Spirit earth? And even more terrifying, what if there’s nothing worth finding?

Psalm 139 captures the essence of a defendant on trial stripped and exposed, tested and humbled. This is what it feels like to be searched.

When we pray, “Search me” we’re often asking God to search from a distance. Or we’re asking God to reveal a pocket full of sins so that we can manage them ourselves. We prefer he reveal the disruptive parts rather than those that are truly dangerous.

When we ask God to search us, we don’t expect that it means, “Wreck us.”

But the Father does not just screen the obvious; he scrapes the bones.

The Psalmist says at the beginning, “You have searched me. You know me,” but he still knows that holy rummaging is a process of discovery.

He knows that the searching continues because he asks God to do it again.

Between verse 1 and verse 23, the process of the search is revealed and the Psalmist cannot hide behind a false self, cannot run from the hedge of the Lord and even there, hemmed in by his loving God, he says, “You have searched me. Search me again.”

Do it again, Papa, he cries.

The Psalmist is no masochist. Rather he’s discovered the richness of the process.

Through divine rifling we experience a sacred remaking.

What God began in creating us he continues to do in his ongoing, redemptive inspection.

We aren’t just standing before him to be judged and released. We aren’t just asking to be declared innocent. We’re asking to be made innocent. It’s a cry of renewal; a cry for God to become the treasure of our hearts again..

When we are searched, we are known. We are discerned. We are recognized by the God who wants to reside within us. When there are no doors to keep him out, he’ll be able to say to us, “Now I know.”

He removes everything that stands in the way of experiencing the treasure that He is.

He removes everything that stands in the way of the treasure He’s embedded within us.

Psalm 139 is a treasure map worth following.

Will you pray today, the bold and brave prayer, “Search Me And Know My Heart”?

*Original Photo Source

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