If you were to meet yourself on the street some morning

(J.R. Miller, 1912)  LISTEN to audio!  Download audio

(You will find it helpful to listen to the audio above, as you read the text below.)

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way!" Psalm 139:23-24

It will be worth our while to think seriously of the things in us, that only God can see. There are sins which are hidden from ourselves, of which our conscience is not aware—our unknown errors. The evil in us which lies too deep to be discovered. There is a SELF in us, which even we ourselves do not see! There are depths of our being, into which our own eyes cannot pierce. You may say that you know of no sins, errors, or faults in yourself—and you may be sincere; still this is not evidence that you are sinless.

Our conscience is not the final court. It is not enough to have the approval of our own heart. There are errors and evils in the holiest life on earth, which only God's eye can detect. We must ask God to search us, if we would be made clean.

We cannot see our own faults, even as our neighbors can see them. There is wisdom in the wish that we might see ourselves, as others see us—for it would free us from many a blunder and foolish notion.

We are prejudiced in our own favor.
We are disposed to be charitable toward our own shortcomings.
We make all sorts of allowances for our own faults.
We are wonderfully patient with our own weaknesses.
We are blind to our own blemishes.
We look at our good qualities through magnifying glasses; and at our faults and errors with the lenses reversed—making them appear very small.
We see only the best of ourselves.

If you were to meet yourself on the street some morning—that is, the person God sees you to be, you would probably not recognize yourself!

We remember the little story that the prophet Nathan told King David, about a rich man's injustice toward a poor man—and how David's anger flamed up. "This man must die!" cried the king. He did not recognize himself in the man he so despised, until Nathan quietly said, "You are the man!"

We are all too much like David.

If the true chronicle of your life were written in a book, in the form of a story, and you were to read the chapters over—you probably would not identify the story as your own!

We do not know our real self. We do not imagine there is so much about us that is morally ugly and foul, that is positively wicked. But God searches and knows the innermost and hidden things of our heart!

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way!"

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Something to ponder
Henry Scougal, 1650-1678:
"Humility is a deep sense of our own baseness, with a hearty and affectionate acknowledgment of our owing all that we are to the divine bounty; which is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God, and great deadness to the glory of the world, and the applause of men."