An Undivided Heart

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart to revere your name. I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and glorify your name forevermore. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the pit of death. -Psalm 86:11-14

The psalmist’s prayer at left is a powerful prayer of hope and thanksgiving, with just a touch of desperation mixed in. Whenever you need the words to pray - when your own words simply don’t seem like enough (although God doesn't need special language to hear our prayers) - the psalms are always a good place to turn. 

These few verses accomplish a lot and give us a grounding for our faith. It begins with a request. God, teach me how to follow. Help me worship you. There’s an acknowledgment in these words that we don’t know how to love or follow God without being shown what it means to do so. We can’t find our way to God, we need God to find us and teach us the way we are to go. 

The response to being shown the way is praise and thanksgiving. "With all [our] heart" we give God thanks for what has been done for us and for what God has shown to us. It seems like a simple response, but it asks much of us. It’s not easy for us to give all of our heart to anything or anyone. Think about all the ways we make other things more important than God; and I’m not just talking about coming to worship on Sunday. We have the opportunity to glorify God with every waking breath but we struggle to do that. Sometimes we struggle to find even one breath to worship and give God thanks.

And that’s when what God has done becomes so central to who we are. In the final verse, we are reminded that it is not through our own efforts that we accomplish anything that we are asked to do. It is because of God’s great love (other translations use steadfast) that we are delivered from the pit of death; from the consequences of our actions and in-actions. 

God always acts to draw us into God’s way and God’s truth. God’s constant, unchanging love is always working in our hearts to make us into what God has called us to be. That is a blessing to lives that often feel divided and difficult. God’s love is steadfast. God is faithful to us, even when we fail. For that we give God thanks.

Effective Word(s)

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11 NRSV)

God speaks and things happen. That’s the way it has always been. From the beginning of the story, God makes things happen simply by saying a word.

Through the prophet Isaiah God reminds the people of Israel that the purposes of God will be accomplished. People are changed; the world is changed when God speaks to and through God’s people. Are we taking time to listen?

We live in a world where words have a lot of power. Truth is sometimes irrelevant. Compassion is often non-existent. People use words to change the world into what they want it to be. They use words filled with hate and anger with little thought of the consequences of what they are saying. “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a myth. Words have power. Our words can be used to dominate and  intimidate. Far too often our words are used to break down individuals and groups.

What if we used words full of compassion and empathy instead? What if we spoke to our brothers and sisters with words of love and hope and peace? What if we spoke to people with the Word of God in our hearts and on our minds as we try to exert a different kind of influence?

The message God gives us through Isaiah is clear. God’s Word accomplishes what God wants it to do. God’s Word goes forth and nourishes the one who speaks and the one who hears. We are good at accomplishing our purposes when we speak. If we speak words of hate, we create hate. If we speak words of anger, we make people angry. If we speak words of mistrust, we create mistrust. If we speak words of love, on the other hand, well I think you get the point.

God spoke and the world was created. God spoke and the people of Israel were freed from slavery. God proclaimed “It is finished” on a cross and we were made free from sin and death so we could be Children of God and could be God’s voice in a world filled with desperate need. Are you listening?