Prayer for Light and Guidance
J. G. Greenhough, M. A. Psalm 86:11 Teach me your way, O LORD; I will walk in your truth: unite my heart to fear your name. A man in David's position needed special light, almost more than we do. He trod a somewhat solitary path in morals and religion, He had no spiritual masters at whose fees he could sit. Our world is made brilliant by guiding lights and example. We have Christ, and Christian influences, and Christian finger-posts everywhere about us. Yet we need to offer this prayer only less, if at all less, than those men of old. We often find ourselves in moral perplexities, riddles are set before us for which we can find no solution. It is very evident, then, that we need this prayer, and cannot offer it too frequently and too earnestly. In truth there is such a strong pull in the wrong direction that we are not likely to take the right way in any doubtful moment unless the light is made clear, unless we feel the drawings of a mightier Power, unless we ask each day, and often more than once a day, in all humility and in all sincerity, that God will make us feel that drawing power, and show us that light, and cause us to know the way wherein we should go. But now, to offer this prayer two things are indispensable. We must first believe that prayer is a real thing, offered to a real Being, offered to One who hears and takes the trouble to answer, and who can answer in ways unknown to us. Further, if this prayer is to be of any value, we must be prepared to go in God's way when He shows it. "Teach me Thy way; I will walk in Thy truth; unite my heart to fear Thy name." Because if the heart is not united, if one part is looking towards God's light and the other pulling away from it strongly to what one likes a great deal better, there is nothing but confusion, indecision, cross purposes, and the guidance is given in vain, even if in that case it is given at all. For we never get light unless we ask for it with the whole heart and are resolved to walk in it if it can be shown Us. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name. WEB: Teach me your way, Yahweh. I will walk in your truth. Make my heart undivided to fear your name.