“Teach me Your way, O Lord;

I will walk in Your truth;

Unite my heart to fear your name” (Ps. 86:11)

Don’t worry—this is not a medical journal.  Do not let the title of this blog mislead you into thinking I am going to talk about the woes of cholesterol.  What I am going to write about, though, will encourage and challenge you in your spiritual walk with the Lord. 

As I read Psalm 86 during my daily Bible study one morning, this verse struck me in particular.  I immediately recognized three separate lessons we can learn, the third of which deals directly with my title, “Clogged Arteries.”

Look again at the first line that David wrote: “Teach me your way, O Lord.”  He acknowledges that first of all we must be taught.  We may have God-given consciences that determine for us what is right and wrong.  We still are often left confused.  Only with the Lord’s tutelage will the confusion melt away and we learn His ways.

David’s statement is also one of humility.  He is saying, “Lord, I don’t have the answers.  I try my best, but I always seem to mess things up.  I need You to teach me Your ways.”  James instructed us to “submit therefore to God” (4:7) and to “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord” (4:10).  Only after we shed ourselves of self can we come to God with an open mind ready to be filled with instruction and knowledge.

The second part of the verse reads, “I will walk in Your truth.”  Much of what I have just mentioned also applies to truth.  We must admit that we cannot know truth apart from his revelation of it because, after all, He is “a God of truth” (Deut. 32:4).  Similarly, we must humble ourselves in the process, like we do in the discovery of His way.

The second point flows out of the first in that we know God’s truth after He reveals His ways.  His ways are truth, just as He is truth.  So, we can rest assured that when He has instructed us, we have been given truth.  The only decision to make then is whether or not we will walk in that truth.  We will know that we have discovered God’s truth—and His way—when we have been motivated toward action.  Don’t ask God to “teach me” unless we are willing to also say, “I will walk.”

Lastly, David writes, “United my heart to fear Your name.”  Just because we have decided to give our lives over to God, following the truth and ways that He reveals to us, does not mean that all temptation will cease.  To the contrary, after our initial commitment to the Lord, our sin struggle will intensify because for the first time we will be resisting what is wrong.  Satan will make us public enemy number one, as he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1^st Pet. 5:8).

The Devil’s goal may be to cause division in the Christian person and community, but an enemy also resides within.  David recognized that his own heart was divided—he held contrary loves right inside himself.  Paul also knew of this struggle when he wrote to the Romans, “I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind” (7:23).  The result of this war was that “…the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want” (7:19).

I think all of us can relate to this feeling of war and division that dwells within.  We must do what David did and ask God to unite the heart that constantly wants to remain divided.  Our greatest struggles often come from our desire to follow God and a simultaneous desire to sin.  If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we often like sin while we hate it at the same time.  That is why our heart constantly feels divided. 

We must ask God to be the heart surgeon that He is, clearing the arteries of our spiritual veins that clog with unrepented sin.  Only he can make our hearts whole and united.  He alone can show us the truth that comes solely from Him and that replaces the areas where we suffered from sin-sludge-buildup.  God is the one to reveal to us the way in which we should go with our united heart.

But what about the confusion that arises when we are inundated with multiple ways, multiple truths, and multiple things to devote our hearts to?  My next blog will look at what I have called errors of multiplicity, in part two of this study on Psalm 86:11.