October 20, 2019 – Psalm 139:23–24

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
—Psalm 139:23–24

I will mention some [more] ways in which God answers these petitions.18
How often when individuals pray to be searched and tried, God gives them opportunities to prove if they love their neighbors as themselves—to see if they will share the profits where there is money to be made, or whether they will dip their hands into their neighbors’ pockets. These are golden opportunities for us to know ourselves and are designed to search us to the bottoms of our hearts.
Often, God so arranges it that [you] can take advantage of others without danger to [your] own reputation. Now is the time of trial—see whether it is the love of God or the fear of society that motivates you. Suppose that someone has, at your store, paid too much, and it is never likely to be found out, or suppose you have found something in the street, and you can keep it or restore it as you please. These are searchings from God, and how completely such circumstances show your true character! Now suppose that instead of finding the Spirit of Christ exhibiting himself, you demonstrate the opposite spirit and resort to some selfish reasonings to quiet your conscience. Well, it is written upon you, Mene, Mene, Tekel—weighed on the scales and found wanting (see Dan. 5:25, 27).
God often allows people to accumulate property that they may have an opportunity to extend the cause of truth and righteousness in the earth. Those who profess Christianity acknowledge themselves to be only stewards for God—that everything they possess is his and, consequently, is at his disposal. Now [do] these people act in harmony with their professions? Well, God often tries them to see if they are acting the hypocrite or not.
God in his providence often causes us to suffer losses by some means, just to see whether we will regard these losses as God’s or our own. Look at someone who once had large property to manage and by some means lost it all, and that person goes about saying, I have sustained such and such great losses. We may profess that it belongs to God and even deceive ourselves into the belief that we are sincere, but when a loss occurs, it often shows us that we did not regard it as God’s but our own.
—Charles G. Finney