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
Although I am neither a seminary graduate
nor a Bible scholar, I love the Word of God. I am not satisfied to read the
Word and lay my Bible on the table. I desire to know why something was written,
to whom it was written, and how I can apply it to my life.
Therefore, I use many of today’s available
tools to enhance my study of God’s Word—encyclopedias, dictionaries, concordances,
reliable texts from both Jewish and gentile authors, and most importantly the
Bible itself. I know many of you do too. In all of this, I have come to realize
that my most valuable asset in understanding God’s Word is prayer.
That conclusion came through years of
asking God why, and how, and when, and what now! As I dug deeper and deeper
into the precious truths enumerated from Genesis through Revelation, I knew that
my intellect alone was not enough to fully comprehend the Word of God. The
intricacies of God’s plan to redeem man seemed beyond my human comprehension.
Through prayer, I learned to trust God for the answers.
Psalm 86, believed by scholars to be a
prayer of David, displays the writer’s devoted trust in God. In this Psalm,
David petitioned God to listen and answer his requests:
1.
Teach me your way, O LORD.
Why?
So I can walk in your truth.
2.
Give me an undivided heart.
Why?
That I may fear your name
After years
of study, I can find no higher calling than to know God and serve Him alone
with an undivided heart—pure and focused on the truth of His Word.
When I open
my Bible, Jesus walks across the pages of history and right into my heart. He
opens my eyes to truth. He opens my mind to wisdom. He opens my heart to love.
He heals my brokenness and calls me to follow Him.
Although I am never perfect in my pursuit of God and although I too often get busy with daily living and the tyranny of the urgent, God continues to call me back to His Word where He can teach me His way. As I pursue Him, He pulls me closer and closer, and the cares of the world slip farther and farther away.
For those moments my heart is truly undivided, and I am
grateful!
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