My Anxious Thoughts

Meditations on

Staying In the Grace for Today 

July 2, 2025

My Anxious Thoughts

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you,

    and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Psalm 139:23-24 

Cheryl and I begin our morning prayer time with this Collect for purity which is deeply embedded in Methodist and Anglican liturgy:

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

We are essentially praying Psalm 139 quoted above. As I read the Psalm today, the phrase, anxious thoughts, caught my attention. I thought about how much time I spend waiting. I don’t always wait well. Sometimes I imagine God saying, “Raising Jesus from the dead was easy peasy compared to working patience into Alex.” My mind easily wanders to all sorts of irrelevant places.

As I know I am prone to wandering, I want to include in my stops this portion of Station Fourteen of Everyman’s Way of the Cross:

CHRIST SPEAKS: “. . . So seek me not in far-off places. I am close at hand.  Your workbench, office, kitchen, these are altars where you offer love. And I am with you there. . . “

My Takeaway: Thus, my favorite prayer, from verse 4 of Psalm 23: “Thou art with me.”

Yes Lord, you are with me, and I join my voice to the Psalmist, “This I know: God is on my side!” (Psalm 56) Staying in God’s grace for today is easier when I remember the words of these psalmists.

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

 

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2025 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.