Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy...Teach me Your way, O LORD, and I will walk in Your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may revere Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your name forever. For great is Your love toward me; You have delivered me from the depths of the grave. (Psalm 86:1; 11-13)
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I am incredibly stunned by how beautiful today's Psalm is.
It is an earnest prayer from David, one that starts off in the first verse with him proclaiming that he is "poor and needy" - a phrase that he has used before in previous psalms.
But it is this humble view that causes the prayerful response found in today's passage.
Let's read it again: Teach me Your way, O LORD, and I will walk in Your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may revere Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your name forever.
Because He is poor and needy, he asks for much.
I have read this passage many times before and I have very easily passed over this prayer without recognizing just how "much" David asks of God.
You see, God does much in, through, and for those who ask Him of much.
So today, I feel led to take time and dive into this request for "much." Let it be your prayer.
1. Teach me Your way and I will walk it truthfully. "Teach me" - or instruct me; let Your words, Your guidance, and Your wisdom be on display for me today. I will sit down and take note of it, Lord.
This is a request for God's way to be displayed above the world's way - and above our own way. It's a prayer for God to do much - for we are indoctrinated daily with a different "way."
It is as if we are praying for God to be seen vividly by our hearts. "Show me Your way...and I will walk it truthfully."
But the prayer does not stop there:
2. Give me an undivided heart, that I may revere You. God, You and I both know my heart. We both know how untrustworthy it can be; how desperate I can become towards my fleshly desires; how I can say one thing, yet do the other. We both know how divided my attention is. Give me - grant me - a heart that is constant; true; genuine.
An "undivided heart" literally means a "united" heart; one that is exclusively designated or concentrated on one source.
I do not know about you...but my many thoughts in one day - let alone an hour - are hardly ever "exclusively designated or concentrated on one source."
I jump everywhere in my mind.
Yet this prayer for much has me requesting - and you requesting - that God would do the impossible in our day. That He would take our heart, mind, and soul...and grant all three of them the ability to stop jumping and to start concentrating on Him only.
It is when we do so that we respond in reverence, in praise, in honor, and in respect. We see Him and take notice of His awesomeness.
So today, pray these words and become shocked by just how "much" our God can do.
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Blessings,
Greg, Declare Glory
