Any Wicked Way by Donna L. Watkins - The Herbs Place

 

Any Wicked Way
by Donna L. Watkins

“O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” Psalm 30:2-3 and John 2:7

Working on our health requires a lot of inward looking into our heart and our soul structure. What do we really think all day long? Do our thoughts allow our hearts to sin? Are we really willing to bring up all the stuffed hurts and wounds so they can truly heal, or do we believe it’s going to be too painful to live through?

We must be willing to let God search us and for the Holy Spirit to speak to us about things that must be dealt with and washed clean with the blood of Christ. It’s so easy to harbor resentment and unforgiveness, to have buried anger unseen by our own eyes.

When you’re really ready to go digging, find somebody that really knows you and ask them to be totally honest with you about what they see as spiritual problems in your life. Ask others if they see anger or bitterness in you? What is hidden to us is usually very visible to others.

If somebody accuses you of something, before getting offended, spend some time in prayer asking God if there’s any truth in the accusation. Use these times to grow – not to allow the devil to dig deeper into your soul.

Any Wicked Way
From “The Spirit-Filled Daily Devotional” by Dick Mills

“See if there is any wicked way in me….” (Psalm 139:24 NKJ)

In the Greek Old Testament (LXX), the word translated ‘wicked’ here is ‘kakos’ meaning “ill.” David is praying for the Lord to check him over to see how spiritually healthy he is. He is saying to the Lord: “How about my attitude? Do I harbor resentment? Is there repressed anger lurking inside of me? Do imaginations and fantasy dominate my thinking? Do hurts, real or imagined, constantly occur?” By asking the Lord to make a spiritual x-ray of his inner man, David is risking the pain and embarrassment of being found guilty of hidden and presumptuous sins. Can we take the same risk and ask the Lord for His inspection?

Man has explored everything but the explorer himself. He has climbed all the mountains of the world, but has not penetrated or searched out all the ridges of his own heart. Jeremiah labored with this truth when he posed the classic question: “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Hebrew: anach = “sick”); who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9 NKJ).

In the very next verse, the Lord responds rapidly with these reassuring words: “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doing.” (NKJ)

Heart searching is painful but it is part of the purifying, purging, pruning, perfecting, and polishing process designed by the Lord to bring us to full maturity in Christ. It is possible to approach the Lord with “clean hands and a pure heart,” but it does take honesty and a commitment to truth that will not allow us to hide anything in our heart that displeases the Lord.

This book is now hard to find, but Dick Mills’ book, “God’s Word For You” is a great selection to glean his wisdom.