For nearly forty years, I worked as a dermatopathologist. Every day, I examined skin biopsies under a microscope and tried to determine what was happening in the tissue. In many cases, the answer was reassuring. In others, the diagnosis would change the course of someone’s life.
Some cancers were obvious from the moment I looked at the slide. The tissue’s normal structure was gone, and the cells were so abnormal that there was little question about what I was seeing. The more difficult cases were often the ones that did not look especially dangerous at first. A lesion could appear relatively harmless at low magnification. Only when I examined it more closely would I begin to notice that something was wrong. Perhaps the cells were growing in a pattern that did not belong there. Perhaps one small area looked different from the rest. Sometimes the findings were subtle enough that I would study the slide again, order additional stains, or ask another pathologist for an opinion. I learned very early in my career that first impressions could be reassuring and still be wrong. That is an unsettling thought when someone’s health may depend upon the diagnosis. It was my responsibility to look beyond the first impression and pay attention to whatever did not fit. Something dangerous did not become harmless simply because it looked familiar.
After spending so many years examining disease in other people, I began to wonder whether the same problem could exist in a different way within me. Could something be wrong in my own life even though it appeared perfectly reasonable to me? I think most of us recognize the obvious sins in our lives. We know when we have lied, deliberately hurt someone, or done something we would be ashamed for others to discover. Those things usually do not require much examination.
I am more concerned about the attitudes I have lived with for so long that they no longer trouble me. I may call something responsibility when it is really my need to remain in control. I may believe that I am simply being honest when I am speaking without love. I may tell myself that I have forgiven someone while continuing to rehearse what that person did to me. Because I can explain my behavior, I assume that I understand it.
That may be the most deceptive part. I am both the person being examined and the person attempting to make the diagnosis. As a pathologist, I could place a slide under higher magnification. I could order another test. If I remained uncertain, I could show the case to a colleague and ask what he or she saw. It is much harder to do that with my own heart. I already know the answer I want. I know which explanation makes me look best, and I know how to defend it.
David did not assume that he understood everything within himself. Instead, he asked God to examine what he could not see clearly:
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)
That is a much more difficult prayer than it first appears. It is easy to ask God to change my circumstances or correct someone who has wronged me. It is harder to ask Him to show me that the problem may also be within me. If I sincerely ask God to search my heart, I must be willing to receive an answer I may not like.
Yet David’s prayer does not end with the discovery of what is wrong. He asks God to lead him in the way everlasting. That is why God reveals what is hidden. He is not looking for an opportunity to condemn those who belong to Him. He shows us the truth so that we will turn from what is harming us and allow Him to lead us in a better way.
For most of my professional life, I searched for disease that could not be seen without a microscope. I knew that something could look harmless and still require closer examination. What frightens me now is the possibility that I could recognize that danger in a glass slide and fail to recognize it in myself.
Perhaps the prayer I need is not, “Lord, show them where they are wrong.”
Perhaps it is simply this: “Lord, search me.”
Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.
#faith #trustinggod #christianity #jesuschrist #bible #seekinggodswill #truth #sanctification #godisincontrol #godhearsourprayers #salvation #providenceofGod #thisfrightensme #Psalm139:23-24
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