A Word in Season: A Heart Prayer (Psalm 51:10)

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How do you pray about your own soul? What are the desires of your heart, for your heart?

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How we respond to such a question, the prayers that come forth from our inmost being, reveal a great deal about our perspectives and our priorities.

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They reveal a great deal about what we really think about God and what we really think about ourselves, what we really think about our relationship with God, what we really think is important in drawing near to Him.

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So how might we pray? How might we deal with God when given an opportunity to pour out before Him our heart desires for our hearts?

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David in Psalm 51 and verse 10 prayed in this way, creating me a clean heart,

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O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Now someone might say, oh well that was

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David under particular conviction of sin, he'd disobeyed God in a particular way, he was feeling particularly guilty and ashamed, it's only natural that a man under those circumstances would pray in that way.

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And I would respond, and is there nothing in me or in you that has any resemblance to David's case?

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Have we not sinned against the God of heaven? Even if we haven't committed precisely the same sins as David in precisely the same way, are not those lusts and hates in our souls also?

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Do we not disobey the God of heaven? Have we not gone contrary to His will and His word and gone in our own way?

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And isn't it proper then for us, if we really understand the holy majesty of God Himself, and see in His most holy light something of our own uncleanness and wickedness, that we should be crying out like David, creating me a clean heart,

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O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. There's a completeness to that.

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These two petitions echo one another and hold together, create, renew.

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If it's not there, put it there. If it's been there, put it back there. If there's a need,

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O God, for cleansing because of the sins that I've committed and the stains upon my soul, then wash me and make me clean.

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And you, O God, you alone can do that. And if I've fallen, O God, if I've slidden back, if I've moved away from what

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I have been or should be, then I pray that you would build afresh what once was there, that you would restore what has been lost.

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There's a depth of confession in that prayer. There's an acknowledgement of we cannot make ourselves clean, work ourselves into a high pitch of holiness by our own efforts and endeavors.

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It's a looking out to God to bless us with His cleansing power and His sanctifying grace, and to grant to us what we realize we most desperately need, cleansing and restoring.

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The preacher and hymn writer and author John Newton once expressed those kinds of desires in a hymn that he wrote.

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He said, And dost thou say, ask what thou wilt? Lord, I would seize the golden hour.

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I pray to be released from guilt and freed from sin and Satan's power.

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He's saying, O God, if you ask me, what do you really want? What are your heart desires for your heart?

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Then I would seize that moment, and I would ask you, O God, to take away my guilt and to enable me more and more to be a truly holy man, showing increasingly that I am no longer under the power of the evil one, but that I belong to Jesus Christ, and I will walk in his ways and show all true holiness.

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So is that any reflection of our heart desires for our own hearts?

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When we pray about our hearts, does it reveal what we truly think about God, what we really know about ourselves, and a relationship that recognizes his great majesty and holiness, but also his great grace and goodness, and comes to him and says, in effect,

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Lord, I am unclean, but you can make me clean. I am broken, but you and you alone can make me whole for your glory's sake.