O Lord, My Inmost Heart and Thought

O Lord, my inmost heart and thought
Thy searching eye doth see;
Where’er I rest, where’er I go,
My ways are known to Thee.

Each spoken word, each silent thought,
Thou, Lord, dost understand;
Before me and behind art Thou,
Restraining by Thy hand.

If I the wings of morning take
To some remotest land,
Still I shall be upheld by Thee
And guided by Thy hand.

From Thee, O Lord, I cannot hide
Though darkness cover me;
The darkness and the light of day
Are both alike to Thee.

Search me, O God, and know my heart,
Try me, my thoughts to know;
O lead me, if in sin I stray,
In paths of life to go.

Author: Unknown

This is a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 139. No specific author is credited in common hymnals or sources; it appears in 19th-century Presbyterian and other Protestant collections as an anonymous rendering, sometimes paired with tunes like 'St. Agnes' or 'St. Anne'. Not to be confused with the similar but distinct paraphrase by Isaac Watts or other known writers.