Our Standing Before God

When I first thought about Joseph Smith asking about his standing before God I felt afraid to ask.
The more I thought about it though the more I see that we cannot make any progress or really even know that we are doing the right things if we do not ask.

I believe there is a relationship between, "Lord, what will thou have me do"? and "What is my standing:".
I also believe that reading the scriptures is one way to know our standing before God. If we read things that make us uncomfortable, we should probably realize that we are not right in that area and we need to "change our lives".
The Lord also repeats many things in the scriptures--as we read we can feel and see the things that apply to us. We may get an answer to, "what will thou have me do", or we may just feel that the Lord is speaking to us.
My testimony becomes more firm everyday that we cannot survive or progress if we do not study the scriptures every day.