Psalm 86 is a prayer of David. It’s a beautiful and heartfelt prayer of praise and of need. Around the midpoint, David gets introspective and prays, “Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name.” (Psalm 86:11, NASB95) That’s a prayer we can and should make our own.
“Teach me your way, O Lord,” David requests. In this journey of faith, we often think that we need to figure things out on our own. But what we really need to do is invite God to teach us. One of the Holy Spirit’s tasks is teaching. Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:26, NASB95) But know this, God loves to use teachable moments in our lives. One of my whisper prayers is asking God what He’s trying to teach me.
Learning things, however, isn’t enough; we must also walk in them. As we learn God’s truth, we must apply it to our thoughts, actions, and attitudes. We may know how to start a car, but that knowledge is trivial unless we actually turn the key. I love the word picture of walking these truths. It means that we learn something then do something—left foot then right foot over and over and over again.
David recognizes that learning and doing is not as easy as it seems. The problem is that we’re so easily distracted by our own desires. To combat this issue, David prays, “unite by heart to fear Your name.” David isn’t giving himself a pep talk; he’s asking God to help him focus on what is important. Whether we admit it or not, we all have divided hearts. Even Paul admitted as much in Romans 7:14-24, which concludes, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24, NASB95) A question he answers in Romans 8.
My encouragement is to lean into David’s prayer. Ask God to teach you His ways. Commit to walking in the truth step by step and moment by moment. Recognize where your heart (passions, desires, attitudes, wants) are divided and ask God to unite your heart towards Him. To be frank, this is one of those lifetime all-the-time prayers. There’s always more to learn, more to walk out, and more of our heart to bring together. Here’s to cool part, God will do it as long as we stay willing and keep listening, walking, and praying.
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