Search me... O Lord...

The first question that flashed upon my mind when I was diagnosed to undergo a coronary bypass surgery on this day in 1996 was, "Why Lord?" I was instantly rebuked by what I had been preaching for years: "Don't ask God, Why? He would answer, Why not?" Though I could not satisfy the queries of my heart, Prophet Jeremiah came to my help. Lamentations 3:39,40, "Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment for his sins? Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord." How true are the words sung by one of the great singer-evangelists from South Africa, Nataraja Mudaliar, "O Lord, I have no right to ask why? Grant me a heart to bear anything." But again more questions: Was it God who sent me this sickness? Or Satan? Or did God allow Satan to inflict me? I could not find the answer but I found out that I need not know the answer. All I needed to do was to search myself and sink into God's bosom! In the first years of my new life with Christ I used to spend time each week in self-examination. Now my quiet time was spent only in praising, praying, and pondering over the Scriptures. Rarely did I sit before God unhurriedly and cry, "Search me, O God!" (Psa 139:23,24). Dust accumulated because I had neglected this exercise. I suddenly awoke to realise I had become comfortable to live with certain sins. As a preacher the pulpit success had blinded my eyes. What I used to condemn severely in my life during my years of "first love" for the Lord, I was now condoning. I was explaining them away as my weaknesses, and justifying them as "everybody does it!" When I analysed my life further in God's light, I clearly saw that I had succumbed to the commit-and-confess pattern with respect to certain parasitic sins. I felt the author of Hebrews was pointing his finger right at me: "In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood!" (Heb 12:4). This dealing of the Holy Spirit in me was nothing short of Isaiah's "live coal" experience (Isa 6:5-7). Heart searching and heart surgery! www.StanleyonBible.com