A Heart's Cry

"Teach me Your way, O Lord,
          that I may walk in Your truth;
          unite my heart to fear Your name."
                         (Psalm 86:11, ESV)

The first time I read this verse out of the ESV it struck me in a way it never had before. The words were just different enough from what was familiar that I listened again.

David is the writer of this psalm. He is calling out to God for God to hear and answer him. David praises God's love, forgiveness, compassion, and faithfulness.

David is often referred to as a man after God's own heart and I think this verse from Psalm 86 is a glimpse into why. David want to know God's ways and he wants to walk in them. He wants a heart that worships God alone.

There's a few things in this verse that stood out to me as I have reflected on it.


"Teach me Your way, O Lord . . ."

This is a request to know God's ways. Our requests often become more of a "God, please bless my plans," rather than asking God what His plans are for us. But, it is when we are seeking God's ways that life is what God created it to be.


". . . that I may walk in Your truth . . ."

Walking in God's ways is the way to live the life He desires for us to live. The way we know God's truth is to seek Him and ask Him. God wants us to walk according to the truth, not according to the lies we so easily believe. We have to regularly ask God what His truth is so we can replace the lies we've been living by with God's truth.


". . . unite my heart to fear Your name."

I love the use of the word "unite" here. It's a picture of many things that have been going in different directions being brought together as one to all go in the same direction. That direction being to worship God.

These words are often my heart's cry. That God would bring together all the parts of me that are running in different directions. It's easy to let everything go, but there is great value in bringing it all together with God.


I don't know about you, but the more I reflect on this verse, the more it becomes my prayer.


"Teach me Your ways, O Lord,
          that I may walk in Your truth;
          unite my heart that I may fear Your name."
                         (Psalm 86:11, ESV)

Understanding Who God Is

Lord is it possible to get this far

And just now understand Who You are?

I'm feeling foolish yet relived as well

Cuz what I bought before I just can't sell

("Wishful Thinking" by Mercy Me)

The first time I heard the song that those words begin, they stuck.

They resonated with me. Because they are words I could share of my journey in the last year and a half. I've been a Christian since I was a kid, but recently I have discovered so much more of Who God is.

It seems that it is easy in our humanness to get things about God confused. In our efforts to explain and understand things, we make God out to be someone He is not.

We don't always do it intentionally. Often, it happens without us trying to do so.

And then we're left with mixed up and confused ideas and pictures of Who God is.

So, what do we do? How do we better understand Who God is?

I've discovered the answer is incredibly simple and incredibly challenging all at the same time.

We simply come to God and admit we don't understand. We ask Him to teach us Who He really is. And we seek to get to know Him better.

But that is challenging as well, because we have to admit we don't know it all. And that goes against everything we naturally do and our culture tells us we should do.

We can't get to know God better, unless we're willing to come to Him and admit we need His help to know Him better.

Courage to Tell Your Story

"Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection." (Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, pg. 53)

When I first read those two sentences, I had to go back and read them a few more times. The truth of them really began to sink in.

The more I serve God in the ministry He has called me to, the more I realize how much people are longing for real connection with others. They want people to know who they really are, not just know the person they put out there on Facebook or Twitter.

But they're also afraid of being vulnerable. It's a risk to share your story, but, it's only when we have the courage to share all of our story that we can experience real connection. We have to be courageous enough to risk vulnerability.

In the book, The Gift of Imperfection, Brene Brown describes that authenticity this way,
"Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen." (pg. 49)
When we choose authenticity, we are choosing to risk being vulnerable. It's a courageous choice we make.

And I believe it's the only choice we can make if we're going to fight against the loneliness of our culture. If we continue to just hide behind the façade of our social media accounts, we will remain lonely. No one will really know us and we won't really know anyone else either.

Sharing our story - the good and the bad - will require courage on our part. But it is when we choose to take that courageous step to be authentic that we discover the things that connect us to other people in a meaningful way.