Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
-- Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV)
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Treasury of David (on Psalm 139:23-24):
He desires to be searched -- for this is a sign of grace. The ungodly man dreads the light; the believer invites it. The prayer is not that God would overlook sin, but that He would find it out, that it may be confessed and removed. There is no safe hiding place from the eyes of Him with whom we have to do; therefore wisdom lies in submitting to the light rather than fleeing from it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together:
He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues:
Nothing so effectually gives a man a right judgment of his own works as the habit of examining them in the fear of God. For when a man looks steadily at his own sins, and reckons them up carefully, he at once begins to think less of the sins of others. The beam in his own eye becomes more painful to him than the mote in his brother's. This is the beginning of wisdom -- to see yourself clearly, without flattery, without excuse.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, Chapter I:
What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, through lack of humility, you displease the Trinity? Lofty words do not make a man just or holy; but a good life makes him dear to God. I would rather feel compunction than be able to define it.
What truth about yourself are you managing instead of facing -- and what would you have to stop building if you let it stand in the light?
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book VIII:
Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
St. Clair, MI -- Sunny, high 87°F. South wind 2-9 mph. Tonight mostly cloudy, slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2am, low 67°F. Thursday trending toward scattered storms, high 82°F.