Teach me your way O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11
All of us have experienced some form of indecision at one time or another. Should I buy this house, change my job, marry this person, buy this coat, vote for this person, change my internet provider…. etc etc. Life is full of choices and for me the supermarket choices, after living in Asia, are pretty amazing although I thought we did pretty well there! Some choices are small but some are major and life-changing.
There is a choice that each of us needs to make concerning God. We read of Joshua challenging the Israelites in Joshua 24:15 “then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,”. There is a choice to be made and a path to then be followed. Joshua told the people that if serving the Lord seemed undesirable to them, then they had to make a choice about which side they were on. No matter what their choice Joshua had chosen for himself and his household to serve the Lord – no turning back (vs 15).
What,then, is an undivided heart that the psalmist wrote of? Jesus commanded us to love the Lord our God with ALL our heart, soul, mind and strength; surely a very tall order, but he was very clear in his instruction. We live in a world that commands our attention to many details of work and family so common sense dictates that we have to live normal, balanced lives and attend to those things that are required of us for day to day living. To me a divided heart speaks of something deeper; it speaks of divided thinking or divided loyalties.
In 1 Kings 18:21 God spoke through the prophet Elijah. He said, “How long will you hover between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is god, follow him.”
It is vital that we decide who our God is going to be. Will it be sport, money, materialism; will it be myself, my time, my opinion, my appearance? To what will I give my allegiance? Are we convinced enough of God’s care for us, and his utter faithfulness and goodness toward us, to commit our lives into his great hands and totally trust him with our future and the decisions of life, or do we feel we have to take matters into our own hands and trust our own judgment? To compartmentalize God speaks of a divided heart. To allow him to lead in some areas of your life and not others is to have divided heart. That is saying “God I will let you lead when it suits me, but I want to choose some things for myself.”
David knew that he was prone to have a divided heart, as are most of us. He knew that he needed God’s grace and he prayed for God to give him an undivided heart. Do you need to pray that same prayer today? It is so easy to revert to old habit patterns of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, but God wants to be our wisdom and our sufficiency. This will mean entrusting our lives into his hands as a little child trusts his father, and not trying to manage our affairs without him. He has our best interests at heart so “if God be God, follow him.” Submit to his leadership and plans for your life; decide to consult him on every decision of life – you will not be disappointed.
Prayer: Teach me your way O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. Amen
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