Testing My Kidney?
by Andy Taylor
While recently reading Psalm 26, I noticed a little number in my bible at the end of verse 2, today’s verse. This always peaks my interest, as it normally means there is an expansion of the meaning in English from the original Hebrew. Sure enough, there was. It said, ‘Hebrew: test my kidneys and my heart’. Wait, what? I mean, I’m familiar with the various words used in the Bible to describe our intricate design (heart, mind, soul, spirit, and will), but kidney? That was a new one for me!
Mrs Brett, my biology teacher from school, would be disappointed to know that I had to google ‘kidney’ to remind myself exactly what it did, but I loved what I found. Basically, the kidney is a filter. It filters the blood by removing waste products. So, a kidney operating as it should will mean that blood reaching the heart is in good shape and free of anything that shouldn’t be there.
So, according to this verse, our minds are a filter that determines what gets to our heart (not the pump in our chest, but the core of our being). It makes such sense. What I think about, dwell on, chew over in my mind, really does end up impacting me on a deeper level.
This is why the psalmist is asking the Lord to test him, and why we should do the same. We need God’s insight and God’s opinion on the health of our mind (kidney – the ‘filter’ to my heart) and therefore our heart too.
So, what is the condition of your ‘kidney/filter’ (mind)? There is so much garbage we can allow into our mind from such things as bitterness, lust, envy, selfish ambition, to the myriad of muck in social media, streaming, and online content. These are the things that clog our filter and stop it working well.
More than just a choice not to fill our minds (kidney/filter) with rubbish is a further choice to fill our minds with the right stuff to make sure our filter is clean. Philippians 4:8 provides a helpful list: ‘whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’
It is going to take some effort, and definitely some help from the Holy Spirit, but let’s decide today to allow God to test our kidney (mind) and make it something that really does filter out the waste and help to purify our heart.
Andy Taylor is Director of Ellel Grange, UK National Director and is a member of the Executive Leadership of Ellel Ministries. He joined the team in 1991 and has served the Lord at Ellel Ministries centres in the UK, Australia and the USA. Andy is married to Cath and they have three boys.
Please feel free to use this devotional to send on to your friends or share with your church fellowship. Provided full acknowledgement is made to Seeds of the Kingdom as the source, you are also welcome to use it in a non-commercial way and reproduce it in magazines or other Christian websites. The copyright for any commercial use of the material remains with Ellel Ministries International.
