A recent worship song repeatedly asks, “How Great is our God?” We see one significant fragment of his greatness in this psalm. 

God made our hearts and understands everything we do. 

Ponder this simple statement. We do not understand everything we do. We do not know our hearts as well as we like to think we do. We require friends, mentors, teachers, and counselors to help us understand ourselves. 

We need help forming good habits and eliminating bad ones. We require discipline from others to help us learn how to discipline ourselves. 

We sing and otherwise express how we love a precious few people with all of our hearts. Perhaps we shouldn’t say this quite so often when we remember those dark places within. We do not want those we love to feel the turmoil boiling within us.

Nobody, not even us, knows our hearts like God does. There are matters we dare not reveal to family and friends. God knows all about our darkness and loves us anyway. He wants to shine his cleansing light in those nooks and crannies. He is more interested in healing the unwholesome within us than punishing us for it. 

Mornings are good times to invite God to take a peek within and bring his healing grace to bear on whatever he finds there. This ensures we begin the day well.

Evenings are appropriate occasions to invite God to clean up what we mess up day by day. This makes it possible for us to lie down in peace as we drift off to sleep. 

One good habit to form is to ask for God’s healing and cleansing as often as something touches the darkness or exposes it during the day. Maybe an hourly ping from a watch or phone could remind us to search our hearts with God and to seek his mercy and grace in our confession and redirection. 

Thank God he knows our hearts and wants to drive out the darkness by replacing it with his perfect light of transforming grace and limitless love!

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I will seek God’s perfect light, transforming grace, and limitless love to replace the darkness within my heart.

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Our Father, shine your light on the dark places in my heart. Transform what is there into something that honors you and blesses others. Fill my heart with the kind of love I can give without regret and extend with joy. Amen.