Teach Me Your Ways!

Teach me your ways, O LORD, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you.

Psalm 86:11

Psalm 86:11 is one of my favorite Scripture verses. In fact, I used this verse as the basis for my pre-sermon prayer for many years when I was the pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church. It puts in a nutshell my desire for my own life, as well as my desire for those who learned from my preaching: “Teach me your ways, O LORD, that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you.” Amen to this!

The original Hebrew of Psalm 86:11 reads “Teach me, O Lord, your ways, that I might walk in your truth.” To walk means, in this context, to live each day. The psalmist is not asking for God to impact only his religious life. Rather, he wants to be guided each and every day by divine truth.

The second sentence of Psalm 86:11 could be translated, “Unite my heart so that I might fear your name.” It assumes that our hearts are confused and in need of unifying. Don’t you know this reality in your life? Fearing God’s name means, as the NLT suggests, honoring God. It entails living for God’s glory each and every moment.

Psalm 86:11 assumes that we need God to teach us and to bring our inner selves into wholeness. Then we will be able to live according to God’s truth each day, glorifying him in all we do.

As a child of God, I pray for the Lord to do these very things in my life. And as a teacher of his Word, I ask that God might use me to help people walk in his truth and honor him in every facet of their lives.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: Do you desire to live according to God’s truth? In what ways does your heart need to be unified by the Lord’s grace and truth?

PRAYER: O Lord, teach me your ways, that I might live according to your truth. May my study of your Word not be an exercise simply in gaining truth, but also a way of living according to your truth. May obedience be the end of my Bible study.

Unify my heart so that I might fear your name. Bring together the disparate parts of my inner life so I might seek you above all, each moment of each day. May my life’s purpose be, truly, to glorify you and enjoy you forever. Amen.

Image courtesy of Laity Lodge Youth Camp, one of our sister programs in the Foundations for Laity Renewal.