Prayer: The Source of our Strength
Sun, Oct 18, 2026
Teacher: Cali Rockwell Series: Stand Alone Sermons Scripture: Psalm 139:1-24
Honesty in Prayer
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Prayer: The Source of our Strength
Honesty in Prayer
Psalm 139
Psalm 139
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Honesty In Prayer
Being honest in prayer means bringing our hearts before the God who already knows us.
This is a no-brainer, right? God is all-knowing. We can’t hide anything from Him. But look at how David begins Psalm 139.
Psalm 139:1–2
“You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.”
David knows that nothing about him is hidden from God. But listen to how he ends:
Psalm 139:23–24
“Search me, 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.”
“Search me, 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.”
He begins with “You know me” and ends with “Search me.” David wants God to show him what needs to change and lead him in the right direction.
That’s what we’re looking at today: inviting God in, humbling ourselves before Him, and being vulnerable in prayer.
Invitation:
Invite God in and he will move
We just saw David begin with “You know me” and end with “Search me.” That’s where honesty becomes an invitation. I know God sees my heart…but am I willing to bring it before Him and let Him lead me?
When I say, “Invite God in and He will move,” I don’t mean He needs my permission to work. I mean I can know He sees what’s happening and still resist bringing it before Him. I can ask Him to change a situation and avoid asking Him to change me.
David asks for both examination and direction:
Psalm 139:23–24
“Search me, 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.”
David brings his heart, his anxious thoughts, and his need for direction before the Lord. He is willing to have God show him something that needs to change. “Lord, look at me, too. Lead me.”
And God invites us to come to Him:
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Matthew 7:7 — “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened for you.”
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Hebrews 4:16 — Come boldly to the throne of grace for mercy and help.
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1 John 5:14 — Ask according to His will; He hears us.
He invites us to ask, and we get to respond.
Humility
And that brings us to humility.
When David asks God to search him and lead him, he acknowledges that he needs God’s examination and direction. I can bring the Lord what I want, but am I willing to let Him show me what I need? Am I willing to follow when His answer looks different from what I had in mind?
In Psalm 139 we see David humbling himself in a good chunk of the passage, verses 2–16. He recognizes that God sees him sitting and standing, that He is acquainted with ALL of his ways, the recognition that nothing about David even IS without God being in control and knowing.
Psalm 139:2–3
“You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.”
And David recognizes that God’s knowledge is beyond his own. In verse 6, he says it is too wonderful for him to grasp. He knows God understands things he cannot. That’s part of humility in prayer: coming before the Lord knowing that His understanding is greater than mine.
Humility in prayer brings healing. It invites God into us and gives Him the place of honor in our hearts and minds that He deserves.
We see in 2 Chronicles that the Lord calls His people to humble themselves and seek Him so that He may bring healing and forgiveness.
Here, God is speaking to Solomon about His people and their land after the dedication of the temple.
2 Chronicles 7:14
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
So we can hear that same invitation: seek Him, bring ourselves honestly before Him, and be willing to turn where He leads us. We can trust Him with the healing we ask for without making this verse a promise that every illness will be cured.
…sounds familiar, yeah? Like the entirety of the Old Testament after the Fall…and then the New Testament with Christ…and even right now…
And that’s the willingness we see in David: “Search me. Show me if there is any offensive way in me. Lead me.” He is asking God to examine him and is willing to respond to what God reveals.
I do think we have a habit of shying from the idea of humility because it has a “we are worms” connotation to it. Humility needs to be lowering yourself to lift up the Lord—it actually is just the correct and natural order of things. I think David does humility so well in Psalm 139, but specifically in verses 13–14.
Psalm 139:13-14
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For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
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I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
Recognizing who God is and what He has done and His sovereignty over you is humility.
Notice that David can acknowledge that he is wonderfully made while giving God the glory. He recognizes his worth and his dependence on the One who formed him. He didn’t create himself, and he doesn’t understand himself as completely as God does.
For me this week, I needed to remember that dependence. I had plenty of thoughts about what should happen, but I needed to bring those thoughts before the One who sees what I can’t.
But when I bow before Him and surrender my will, I also have to be honest about what I’m surrendering. What am I afraid of? What am I struggling to trust Him with? That’s where humility leads us into vulnerability.
Vulnerability
We’ve talked about humbling ourselves before the Lord. But when I surrender my will, I also have to be honest about what I’m surrendering. What am I afraid of? What am I struggling to trust Him with?
Psalm 139:11–12
“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,’
and the light become night around me,’
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.”
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.”
Notice that David brings even this thought into his prayer: what if the darkness could hide me? Then he acknowledges that it cannot. God sees him there, too.
I think most of us, whether we are or are not believers, have felt this. “If I choose to walk deeper and deeper into the darkness, eventually the Lord will not see me or will turn His face from me.” “If I keep choosing this sin, God will never be able to redeem me.” Insert us limiting and putting barriers on God here.
Those are ways we can apply what David is saying. We imagine there is somewhere God cannot reach, something He cannot see, or some part of us we can keep from Him.
David is recognizing the stupidity of that thought process and returning it back to God in a glorifying way, reminding himself and readers/listeners that God sees right through the darkness. His light cannot be tamped out, and in fact, darkness holds no power over God at all.
And earlier, in verses 7–10, David has already acknowledged that wherever he goes, God is present, and His hand can still guide him and hold him. So the God who sees into the darkness is also the One David can turn to for help.
If you will give the Lord your deepest parts, your vulnerabilities, your shame, then He will bring healing.
That means bringing Him what is actually there. The fear, the shame, the frustration, or even the fact that we don’t want to bring it to Him.
For me this week, hiding looked like avoiding the space where I might have to feel something.
God already knew all of that. But I needed to actually bring it before Him. My honest starting place was that I was tired and didn’t want to press in.
And when we don’t know how to pray from that place, we have help.
Romans 8:26–27
Romans 8:26 explains that the Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings when we do not know how to pray.
And verse 27 brings us back to something we’ve been hearing throughout Psalm 139: God searches our hearts. He knows the mind of the Spirit, and the Spirit intercedes for God’s people according to His will.
Even when I cannot put everything into words, I can bring myself before Him and ask for help.
I am so hesitant to be vulnerable, or I used to be, because where I grew up, weakness is just thrown in your face and used against you. But the Bible is full of Scripture that counters that.
Scripture doesn’t just call us to be vulnerable with the Lord, but to be vulnerable with other believers that we may pray for each other and be healed.
James 5:14–16
“Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
There is a willingness here to let someone know we need prayer. To acknowledge that we are sick, struggling, or dealing with sin, and allow other believers to come alongside us.
Invite the Lord in. Invite your family in and allow yourself to join the movement of healing that the Holy Spirit has put in place.
David ends his prayer by asking God to search his heart, know his anxious thoughts, and show him anything offensive in him. He is willing to bring himself under God’s examination. That’s the invitation for us, too: bring Him what is really there, and be willing to let Him work in it.
Honesty in Prayer
It’s hard to be honest in prayer because you have to invite the Lord in, humble yourself, and be vulnerable…and when you do that, you may realize just how little of the Gospel you truly believe.
*identifying so deeply with sin that you think God can forgive you, but not heal you and make you new
You may realize how little of your life you have truly given over to the Lord.
*wanting to follow him on your terms, unwilling to move a house, quit a job, stay at a job, end an unhealthy relationship, pursuing new friendships, just staying when it it is hard
You may realize how little you actually trust God to work all things together for the good of his kingdom- or more than that- you don’t desire the good of the kingdom but the good of right now for yourself.
*similar to not fully surrendering, afraid to be made into a new creation because of what will change
And those are things we can bring honestly before Him, too. “Lord, I know what Your Word says, but I am struggling to trust You here. Search me. Help me. Lead me.”
That’s where David’s prayer leaves us. With an invitation to ask God to examine our hearts and lead us forward.
CONNECTION CARD
1. There is an issue in my life that I need help praying into.
2. I am struggling with seeking God honestly in prayer.
3. I need prayer for (be specific)
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