This morning I was reflecting on Psalm 86, a prayer of David. As scripture often does, it held up a mirror and said, “Now look at your heart and the prayers that overflow from it… What do you see?”
Psalm 86 is a psalm of lament, meaning that it is a prayer for God to help vindicate David from the hatred, pride, mockery, and every other form of violence his enemies may have been conjuring against him in that moment.
Can you think of a time when you have been treated unfairly, mocked, misunderstood, hated, abused, or fearful that someone may act violently towards you? Take a few minutes to reflect on how you felt in those seasons and then slowly read the psalm, paying close attention to the things that David asks God to do in a moment of crisis.
David asks God for a number of things: to preserve his life, be gracious, gladden his soul, listen to his cry, and answer with deliverance. But the one request that sums up all the others is in verse 11: “Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name,” or as you may have heard it translated, “give me an undivided heart.”
The nuance of the Hebrew word for “unite” is lost in our translations; an equivalent English word simply doesn’t exist. When describing the kind of relationship David wanted his heart to have with God, he chose the word יַחֵ֥ד (pronounced “yahēd”), which means “only child.” The same word was used to in the tragic story of Jephthah’s only daughter (Judges 11:34), Abraham’s call to sacrifice his only son (Genesis 22), and the prophetic word of Amos 8:10–that God’s judgment would be like “a time of mourning for an only son.”
Why would David pray, “only son my heart to fear your name”? That is nonsense to our ears! Translators do their best to make it make sense to us by using words like “unite” or “undivided.” But yahēd is a significant word, not least because in each of the above stories we find the literary type that foreshadows the antitype figure, who was the only begotten Son of God.
“Teach me your way, O LORD, that I might walk in truth like Jesus.”
“Unite my heart with that of your only Son.”
“Father, make my heart your heart.”
“May I and the Father be of one singular mind, as you and your Son are one.”
“Will you cherish, nurture, and protect me as a father would his only child?”
It’s also interesting to note that a prayer about deliverance from scheming enemies barely mentions the specific nature of his crisis, or the people who have provoked it. In verses 14 and 17, he gives us clues about their intent. We are prone to make the enemy and all of the mess that they have created the central focus of our prayers in such times.
David’s central request, as we understand it on this side of the cross, was for God to make him like His only Son in spirit, mind, and heart. Even in the way he dealt with his enemies and the pains they inflicted upon him.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Cor. 1:3-5)
Try this experiment with me over the weekend: First, pray! And when you do, anchor it in this one request: “God, make me more like Jesus…
… so that I may walk in your truth, which teaches me to see my past, present, and future with eyes of faith and not of fear.”
Your brother,
Ryan