The Prayer That Could Ruin Your Comfort | Psalm 139:23–24

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Good morning, Jeff, Good morning Chris. Hey, it

is a good morning because this is the Bible Guys.

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black today.

Yes, back in back in blah.

I've got the Bible Guy's logo on my shirt.

Yes, and I have just a black shirt. Yes. All right, well,

hey today dangerous.

Yes, we're actually launching into a brand new series called

Dangerous Prayers.

Maybe that's why we're feeling dangerous.

Yeah, we are oh danger Yeah.

Have you ever see the Grin System Christmas?

Yes?

Jim Carrey version, Yes, that's one of my favorite parts

saw though, when he's talking to this Lulu, what's your name, Cindy,

Luhu Cindy and he.

Goes danger danger That's what I like.

Okay, I like that part anyway. Yeah, anyway, it just

comes into my mind.

That's what she got on Monday people.

Sorry, sorry, we're gonna be jumping into a segment before

we jump into the prayer thing that Desiree wrote here,

and it's called show video.

What is that.

Oh no, that's rolling video. No, No, she didn't name

the section.

She didn't name the segment.

Oh, that's it. Yeah, I was reading the line.

He read the line before on the show notes.

On the roll in. That's the rolling note.

It says today we're starting a new series on dangerous prayers,

and today's passage is about the prayer that could ruin

your comfort. So let's ask this question, when's the last

time you did something that scared you in a good way. Now,

I've I've jumped out of planes a couple of times,

three times. I've done rock climbing over like three hundred

foot cliffs. I've done bungee jumping. I've done pair sailing.

Usually anything with heights gets me.

Really, what's a pair of sailing scared to you?

Oh it's twelve hundred feet?

Was it scary?

Uh? Yeah, kind of because you know, at any.

Time people are just kind of floating there like that.

Yeah, that that part is smooth, But like think about

like something go wrong and just if it fell, you're.

Done, Okay, right, sure, there's always.

A possibility, there is, so so yeah, I would say

it was a little scary.

Literally wearing a parachute.

No, you're it's it's not the same. It's not the

same as a parachute.

What's something behind you?

Okay?

Did you also know that if the boat stops going,

then you go down.

Yeah with the parachute.

Yeah, no, it's it's faster than you think.

So anyway, Uh, you're probably right, but I.

Just I just want to It just felt dangerous.

It felt dangerous to me.

The perception of danger was there.

Okay, Uh, anyway, but I've done like scary roller coasters,

and so the question was, when's the last.

Time, And yeah, I'm having a hard time.

I'm having a hard time too, because here's the thing.

I don't think I've done anything that extreme.

For a little bit. It's time, it is time, I think,

I think it is time.

But I think probably the last time I did something

extreme was jump out of a plane and that was

like six years ago. But I have done height things

like I remember going to the top of a very

tall lighthouse with just a couple of inches walking around

the ledges. That felt pretty dangerous. Again, height things are

a big thing for me. I went on like a

glass bridge, you know, I went to the top of

the deal in New York, you know, those kinds of things,

but maybe a roller coaster.

I don't know.

Have you been historically the kind of person who does

like extreme things? Yeah?

Yeah, like not do things. Yeah.

Well, you know what, when I was younger, I always

thought to myself, because I am definitely afraid of heights,

I just want.

To do those things overcome it, to overcome it.

So I've done all the height things right, and and

then you know, I've done fast things I've done. I've

done reckless, dangerous things in that way too. But you know,

some things I did not enjoy.

Yeah, I have I have things on my you know,

I've mentioned before, I have a bucket list. I've got

like one hundred and something thing, one hundred fifty things

or something like that on my bucket list. But a

few of them I can't do because Heritage Church has

a key Man life insurance policy on me, and it

specifically excludes them. Like I'm not allowed to cage dive

with sharks, I'm not allowed to skydive. I'm not allowed

to drive a race car. There's a few things like

that I'm allowed to do. So that's kind of frustrating

to me. So I'm a little nervous about saying the

things I have been doing.

There you go in fear that the insurance agent is

listening our listeners.

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I've always been that person that

somebody says, I dare you, and I'm like, okay, I

just always have had a lot of confidence in my

ability to pull a thing off or to survive a thing,

and you know whatever. And then I have a weird

mechanism in my head that says, Okay, it's dangerous, right,

there's this perception of danger. But how many one hundred

thousand people did that thing jumped out of a plane

today or this week and not all of them died,

like one hundred thousand of them lived whatever. And so

there's this mechanism in my head he goes, it's not

that dangerous. There's a perception of danger, but these companies

couldn't stay in business if they were.

Yeah.

I did that on my first guy Divee, the guy

that was tandem strapped to me. I said, how many

times have you cause you know there's three shoots, right,

there's a shoot, then there's a backup shoot, then there's

even an altimeter shoot, which if we both pass out,

it opens and so so I felt okay there. But

I looked at him and he was an older guy,

and I said, how many times have you jumped?

And he goes, oh, he goes, I'm in.

A really really elite class. I said what, and he goes,

I've jumped ten thousand times. I said, you've jumped ten

thousand times, right, and.

He said yeah. And I was like, oh, I'm good.

Immediately was good like that.

You didn't have a sense like he's about due.

No.

I did not, No, I just it was the same

logic you this is like, it's like, oh, I'm good.

This guy knows what he's doing, right, he's going to

pack the Shoot.

Fine, I'm going next week. I'm going to a pretty

dangerous city. It's a in the world. It's a well

known dangerousy I don't want to say it, but and

I had a couple of people go, oh, maybe he

shouldn't go. That's such a dangerous city. Yes, well, how

many people live there? Like, I don't know? I said,

over twenty million people live there, right, right, So that's

how many people lived there yesterday. There's twenty many people.

Do you know how many people woke up this morning?

Twenty million people.

Well maybe not, maybe not.

Yeah, no, Still, they didn't lose twenty million people yesterday. Right,

So the probability is something bad happening to you on

that day is really really small. It's like greater than

getting struck by lightning. Right.

So right, Well, I did go to South Sudan when

it was very unsafe, and but that wasn't something that

I was feary in a good way. That was actually

a bad way.

Way.

Yeah, that was intense.

Yeah, I've had some of those. A lot of mine

are with animals. I think maybe I was thinking, you know,

I've been this whole time just killing time, trying to

figure out something recent. I think the most recent thing

that happened to me that scared me. I was on

the border of Sudani Kenya. So when you said Sudanic clicked, Yeah.

And we were staying in this I don't know, like

a Safari kind of a camp and in my room

on the second night, oh yeah, you told me this.

In my room on my second night, I had a

tarantula that I had to get out of my room

and I didn't want to go ask for help because

those guys are so tough. Yeah, you know, and so

I had to figure out how to get it out myself.

I wound up catching it and getting notes. I didn't

want to kill it, so I caught it and got

it outside. But it was one of those things that

I had seen it subconsciously and hadn't It didn't register

the first day, and then I slept all night with

that spider in my room. Yeah, and then the next.

Day my wife, My wife just shivered.

It was it was about it was about as big

as my hand, not quite as big as my hand,

maybe half the size of my hand.

You know, you and I live parallel lives, right, I

mean we had a lot of the same stories I had.

That happened to me in uh in Haiti. There was

a transla.

Oh really, yeah it was.

It trapped me in a shower.

It trapped you.

Yes, there was one hallway.

There was one hallway, and it was right there and

I was screaming coming out of the shower and screaming help, help,

and nobody was around, and it literally it was.

A really thin transla. Saw you coming out of the thing.

It was screaming too, help right right.

I only had a towel, that's it. So I didn't

know what to do.

So I just I had to hold up the towel

because those things could leap. I had to hold the towel,

and I had to walk by, and I was I was.

As close to that transfer as me to you.

You didn't me too. I had to catch it. I

had to catch mine. Oh you didn't show your towel

on the translate.

I was, yeah, no, I didn't think of that.

Throw your towel on the translant, scoop it up, get outside. Yeah, no, anyways, I.

Just held the towel up, thinking if he jumps, she's

gonna hit the towel.

Right, that's funny. Yeah, that's probably the main one. But

most of mine are animals or events like what you

were talking about, you know, skydive and stuff like that.

I just I'm not allowed to do those.

Things, so gotcha.

Okay, well talking about dangerous.

Yes, we're talking about dangerous. Well that was an easy transition, it.

Was, it was. But for the next couple of weeks,

they're all dangerous prayers. Yes, And I thought this was

a really cool idea. You know, many of us we

pray these prayers, you know, these polite, little dinner time prayers.

You know, God is good, God is great. Kind of stuff.

It's that is great. God is good.

God is great. God is good.

What do we because because people think for some reason,

food rhymes was good?

Okay, good good food? Yeah? What's the what's the ones

we teach our kids? Now I lay me down to sleep. Yeah, yeah,

those are the kind of prayers that most of us

wind up praying. Do you know we pray for Aunt

Gertrude's bunions, right, we pray for those kinds of things.

I can't believe you just said that. That is but

I keeld have gone all day without a visual aid.

Right. But we wonder why there's not a lot of

power and sometimes why there's not a lot of adventure

in our lives. And it's because we're praying either weak

prayers or we're praying the wrong kind of prayers. And

so I thought, hey, this would be a fun series

to do. Hey, dig into the Bible these really powerful,

dangerous prayers.

I don't often say this because I always tell stories

of dysfunction of my family, but did you know that

my family would not have a family meal, which we

did almost every night we had a family meal. We

would not have a family meal without saying a prayer.

And we never went to church growing up, but it

was that prayer. God is great, God is good, and

where we think him for this food from his hands

we must be fed.

Give us a little this daily bread amen at something. Yep.

So as insanely dysfunctional as your family was, I like

the poke fun that you you pretty much grew up feral. Yes, yes, yes,

but you guys had family dinner every night, almost every night. Yeah,

and you prayed together.

Yes.

Isn't that amazing?

They didn't. They didn't call it prayer though. They said,

say grace.

Yea, I say grace.

Yeah.

Wow, that's amazing. That's probably why you guys are still close,

even though you had such a crazy family grow up

growing up with family dinner, family Dinner's magical. Man. Okay, anyways,

we've killed enough time. Let's jump into this. We're only

looking at two prayers, but the reality is Psalm one nine,

the whole thing is a prayer. Yeah right. As a

matter of fact, as you read through the Psalms, they're

all songs that the Hebrew people, the Jewish people would

sing many times going up to the temple or in

the temple or throughout their day and other things. But

every one of them is also a prayer that was

put to song, right, put to music, and so this

one is a psalm of David, and he ends the

prayer with this. He says in verse twenty three, search me,

Oh God, and know my heart, test me and know

my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you,

and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Yeah.

So, dude, that's a that's a dangerous prayer. God. He's

literally inviting God to do some exploratory surgery. Yes, hey,

just check a see is there anything in there that

I need to be fixed? Right? That's amazing. But let's

give a little bit of context.

He says, point out. Yeah, he wants he wants God

to bring to his attention.

Yeah yeah, search me, point it out. You show me God,

I love you so much. I want you to show

me anything in me that needs to change. And that's powerful.

That's like standing in front of your husband and says,

does this dress make me look fat? Tell me the truth?

But they don't want the truth. Yeah, right, But but

David's praying for the truth.

So for some context, he really lays out already through

this whole chapter. God, you know everything right, That's really

what he's doing through this whole chapter. In the first

six verses, it says, Oh, Lord, You've examined my heart

and know everything about me. You know when I sit

down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when

I'm far away. You see me when I travel, when

I rest at home. You know everything I do. You

know what I'm going to say even before I say it. Lord,

you go before me and follow me. You place your

hand a blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too

wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. He

goes on. He says, I can never escape your spirit.

I can never get away from your presence. If I

go up to heaven, you're there. If I go down

to the grave, you're there. If I ride the wings

of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest sea,

even there, your hand will guide me, and your strength

will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide

me in the light around me, to become night. But

even in the darkness I cannot hide from you. To you,

the night shines as bright as a day. Darkness and

light are the same. To you. You made all the

delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together

my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.

Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it? Just

so funny, man, God, you did a good job making me.

Look how marvelous this is.

It's wonderfully come by.

How well I know it. Your workmanship is marvelous, he says.

You watch me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,

as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born. Every day my

life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid

out before a single day had passed. How precious are

your thoughts about me? Oh God, they cannot be numbered.

I can't even count them. They outnumber the grains of

the sand. And when I wake up, you're still with me.

Oh God, if only you would destroy the wicked. And

now he's mad at it. He does this a lot

in his prayers. He's like, God, you are so awesome.

You're so great. By the way, I got some enemies.

If you kill them for me, and he said, get

out of my life, you murderers, they blaspheme, you your

enemies misuse your name. Oh Lord, shouldn't I hate those

who hate you? Shouldn't I despise those who oppose you? Yes,

I hate them with total hatred, for your enemies are

my enemies. And then he says, search me, o, God,

and know my heart, and test me and know my

anxious thoughts, point out anything in that offends you, and

lead me along the path of everlasting life. So really

really powerful because he admits, God, you know everything about

me from the first second of conception. You knew who

I was.

You know I love It's been a while since I've

thought of this. When he says, how precious are your

thoughts about me? Oh God, they cannot be numbered. They

I can't even count them. They outnumber the grains of sand.

So David is saying that if you try to count

all the grains of sand, God has more precious thoughts

about you than the grains of sand.

Yes, And I know it's David saying.

It's not God saying it, sure, but it is, you know,

inspired by God, and it is contained in God's word.

So I have to believe that that's true, Right, I

have to believe that that God has precious thoughts about us.

That out number the grains of sand.

Is amazing if it's in his Holy word, right, pretty amazing.

So either way, it's it's just in a phenomenal though, right,

that God has precious thoughts about me, and he says,

you know all my days time is time is relevant,

day and night is irrelevant to you God, everything is

the same. And then also, of course this is a

very famous chapter. We have to say this. It's a

very famous chapter that is very pro life, isn't it.

It's the pro life chapter.

It's well, I'm sure that there are multiple places in

the Bible where God highlights the value of human life. Yeah,

you're right, but this one is talking about God knew

me at conception, that's right, that's what and was paying

attention to me from the moment I was conceived, all

through my development before I was ever born, and God

had a plan for my life before I was ever

even born.

Yeah, and he talks about knowing the number of days

while he's in the womb, and so he mentions it

several times.

So the reason why I say pro.

Life, I was gonna say, don't think David wrote it

to be political, No.

Of course not.

But the reason why I was saying that is because normally,

when when you talk about somebody on whether they believe

that life begins a conception, they'll go to Psalm one

thirty nine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeremiah has some things about that that

God knew me in the womb and things like that

as well. There's other places that talk about how God

knows us from the very beginning of our existence, before

we knew us, God knew us.

Yeah, and I know that that.

I know that's a hot topic even for a lot

of you know, Christians who are working their way through

their beliefs.

But we firmly believe that life begins a concession.

Absolutely. It doesn't need to be a hot topic if

we just decide, you know, what God's word says is true,

right right, So yeah, it's a big one. But he's

highlighting here, God, you know everything about me. And then

he says, as a matter of fact, and the first

verse he says, oh, Lord, you've already examined my heart.

You know everything about me. That's what he says. And

then at the end he says, so search me and

know my heart, and test me and know my anxious thoughts.

He's already said at the beginning. Remember I've talked about

before how oftentimes the beginning in the end are the same,

and then that the middle is really really the point. Yes, right,

And and so he starts off at the beginning, God

examined me and know me. At the end he ends

it search me, know me, test me. But the big

idea here is God, point out anything in me that

offends you. Really, that's it is, God, help me know

what you know about me. And and here's a guy

that's going to be king. I don't know that he

was king at this point, was he? No, he was

well for the choir director. Yes, so he was king

at this point.

Yeah, because isn't this one of the prayers that he

prayed after.

His baby died?

So perhaps, yeah, I think so, so he uh, but

this is he wrote it for the choir director. So

this is this is after he becomes king. And so

here's a most powerful man in Israel, most successful person

in the history of Israel up to that point, right,

just so dominant. He's like this alpha male. He's a warrior,

he's a poet, right, he's a philanthropist, he's everything. Man,

He's like he's like Bruce Wayne, right, you know what

I mean. But he's saying, God, if there's anything in

me that's holding me back from you, would you show

that to me? Yeah, show me what you know. You

would think he was self aware, but he knows that

a lot of times we can have shadow missions. We

can justify things that aren't right, and we can make

them feel right to us in the moment so we

can keep doing them. Or we can have these shadow

missions that were on the surface that looks like it's

the right thing, but underneath we have some selfish motives

behind it or whatever. And so he's like, God, show

me anything that's not in alignment with what you're trying

to do in my life. I think on one side,

that can be a dangerous prayer, because God will He'll

show you. On the other side, that can be a

life changing prayer when you begin to tell God on

a regular basis, God, I don't want anything to be

between us, because God bless as holy people. God blesses

people who are becoming more and more like Jesus. He

just does.

Yeah.

And whenever you ask God to point out things in you,

what you're really doing is you're saying, you know, convict

my heart, change my heart, you know, help my heart

to align with yours, help my desires to align with yours.

Because sometimes you know, it's not as if God is

going to speak audibly and just say, well, here's a list.

I think what will end up happening is is circumstances

will reveal themselves, maybe they unfold, or maybe your heart

will change, maybe your conviction will turn, you know, and

you'll feel just start to feel honestly bad about certain

things in your life. I think, sure, because I've prayed

this enough to know that.

That's what happens.

Yeah, Yeah, And all of a sudden, just your life

begins unfold, and you're like, well, I guess that's revealing

that I think that not.

Every negative thing is a bad thing, right right, So

just because it's a negative thing, or just because I

have a negative feeling in the moment, that doesn't mean

it's bad. If it brings correction in my life, it

makes me better the only way. My daughter just got

engaged and John, her fiance, gave her a really beautiful

ring and it's cut so nice. And while he was

shopping for rings, we went to a mutual friend of

ours that had that has a jewelry store, went there

and we were looking all the cuts and stuff like

that back behind the while there's guys in there doing things,

it's all and so I was thinking about it. Later.

I actually watched a video of how people cut diamonds.

And the diamond that winds up on your ring was

much larger when it was a raw diamond, right. It

wasn't sparkly right, right, But then they chip away that piece,

and they chip away that piece, and they chip away

that piece. They start chipping away and next thing you know,

they carve out this incredible diamond that sparkles and just glows.

It has value when it's not cut. It has more

value when it is cut, right, And that's what God's doing.

So can you imagine being that diamond ow owl right? Right?

But you don't find any women walking around with a

raw diamond on their finger, right. The great social value

on our planet for diamonds is not the raw di

Have you ever seen any of the ancient crowns in

museums and they just have like an odd shaped sapphire

and an odd shaped diamond or whatever. I was in

the louver and we saw a couple of the crowns,

the early crowns of the French kings, and they weren't

cut diamonds, they were just stones and you look at

it go. But then by the time you get to

I mean, it was okay, it was nice. But by

the time you get to the later, you know, the

later Louise yea man, those things are cut and they

just pop. They just glistened. Same lights on both crowns,

but that one man probably in value size carrot size,

they were the same. But the ones that were cut

just has so much value, so much more value. And

that's what I think. Think, if we can just let

some of those painful moments, this moment here, God find

anything and chip it away from me, get it off

of me, so that I can be everything you made

me to be, there's I think great value and being

willing to let God do that.

You know you made a comment and I thought to myself, Wow,

that is a more powerful statement than maybe perhaps we

know you said not everything that gives you a negative

feeling is bad if it brings correction in your life, right.

And I thought to myself, is that not a message

that twenty twenty five needs to hear?

Oh? Sure?

In our culture lay.

Just because something gives you a negative feeling, it doesn't

have to be bad. If it brings correction, it makes

you better, right, And that is something that you know

in this culture lay they would say, what do you mean,

I don't.

Want to feel bad? Right?

You know, it is so funny how the culture is

opposite of that statement. Yeah, it's true, and that is

so crazy.

Well, there is a thing we probably should unpack here,

and that's where David says, I hate people who hate you.

Oh yeah ha.

So with regard to the Psalms, we don't build doctrines

around what David writes, right, because these are these are

David's personal feelings that God chose to put in the

Bible to show us what it looks like when a man,

a sinful man, continues to pursue God. Right, And so

not every single thing David says is a good thing.

David's just being honest and transparent with God with regard

to how he feels. Yeah, yeah, his passion for God, well,

he's justifying the fact that he hates them. Shouldn't I

hate them God? Right? But then he ends God showed

me if there's anything I promise you one of the

first things God says, you shouldn't hate people, David, right, right,

because we know consistently the Bible is its own best commentary.

So is it okay for me to hate people who

hate God? No. Romans tells us, don't repay evil with evil,

repay evil with good. Jesus says, love your enemies, Pray

for your enemies, do good to your enemies. Right, Jesus said,

turn the other cheek. Jesus said, treat people the way

you'd want to be treated. Obviously, so we can go

down the line, and there's all these passages to.

Be fair, David's assignment was to kill them.

Yeah, David, David was a king. That was desire was

he was assigned to wipe out the enemies. Yeah, yes, yes,

so he had.

But he could have righteous indignition or anger because it

doesn't say that God hates, but it does say that

God can be angered.

Right, And so his passion is love for God. I

think he's a little over zealous with his language, but

his intent is God. I'm mad at the people that

hate you, right, and I'm willing to do my job.

So the danger is between and I just talked with

a young guy that's going into the rangers and for

lunch yesterday. And we've talked about this many times. God

ordains governments to protect and defend against evil and to

fight if they have to. And so when you're doing

your job on behalf of the people in a governmental

kind of a situation, then whatever you have to do,

what force you have to use, that's ordained by God.

It's mentioned throughout scripture. God makes that acceptable. But individually,

walking down the street, someday some guy makes you mad,

you can't just kill him, right, And so David is struggling.

I think on this fine line that he walks here

between being a king and a citizen. So as a king, yes,

he goes and does his job, but here in his

prayer is so you gotta be careful. So never use

David as a justification for hating somebody or for giving

being violent towards someone you know in your everyday social life.

That would be inappropriate. And so I believe that God

probably would have taught him that, the Holy Spirit would

have said, hey, you know what, in your job situation,

you have to fight against those evil people that are

trying to wipe out the people of Israel. Uh, in

your everyday situation, stop killing messengers.

A couple of times, like five, yeah, five different times,

I think. I mean, it just seemed like there was

no end.

Yeah, they come and give him bad bad news that

he kills them. Right, It happened a couple of times

for sure. So anyways, I love this prayer. I thought

it was interesting you mentioned you pray this prayer sometimes,

so do I. Yeah, God searched me and yeah, change me.

We're not timed.

Oh woll yeah, twenty seven minutes.

I was just gonna say bonus material today.

And you know, these songs.

Created me a clean hard and then there's another one

that goes creating me a clean heart.

Oh God, that I might.

Nope, don't.

Yeah, it's a great song to put in the scripture.

You can look it up.

All right.

Well, hey, that is definitely our time, So we will

go ahead and see you next time, hopefully on the

Baba Gus