Hey Church!

Just as we began this day in prayer, let us take time this evening to ask the Lord to search our hearts again. Here are a few prompts to get your conversation started: 

• Teach me your way, LORD! 
• Thank you for your faithfulness throughout this day. (Take a moment to think back and name some specific ways you’ve seen His hand today)
• Show me any of my ways that were not pleasing to you today. I confess these things to you and ask for your Spirit to help me turn from my sin and renew my trust in you again. 
• LORD, please give me an undivided heart that seeks your pleasure above my own.

Another translation of this Psalm reads, “Unite my heart to fear Your name.” The word “undivided” can also mean “united.” One reading might interpret David’s request, “Help me set my desire wholly on You.” While it is true that we–and presumably the psalmist also–do, indeed, desire an undivided focus on the things of God in this sense, there is another possibile meaning here. 

If you have time, please go back to verse 1 and read the whole chapter from beginning to end before reading on.

Our passage, verse 11, is sandwiched between two contrasting ideas. The first half of the chapter is full of cries for deliverance–from afflictions, enemies, sin, and a downcast spirit. The second half of the same prayer ends with thanksgiving for His lovingkindness, mercy, grace, strength, help, and comfort. And the hinge, linking these two very different sentiments together, is found in verses 11-13. 

In short, David teaches us to pray, “God, whether I am in a season of affliction or deliverance, in plenty or in want, in joy or sorrow, in sickness or in health… make the united theme of my heart be the fear of your name.”