Psalm 86 - Wholehearted Commitment
- Chad Werkhoven
- Aug 15
- 4 min read
Don't wander around lost; pray that the LORD will show you the road.
Psalm 86
A prayer of David.
1 Hear me, LORD, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
2 Guard my life, for I am faithful to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God; 3 have mercy on me, LORD,
for I call to you all day long.
4 Bring joy to your servant, LORD,
for I put my trust in you.
5 You, LORD, are forgiving and good,
abounding in love to all who call to you.
6 Hear my prayer, LORD;
listen to my cry for mercy.
7 When I am in distress, I call to you,
because you answer me.
8 Among the gods there is none like you, LORD;
no deeds can compare with yours.
9 All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, LORD;
they will bring glory to your name.
10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.
11 Teach me your way, LORD,
that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
12 I will praise you, LORD my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths,
from the realm of the dead.
14 Arrogant foes are attacking me, O God;
ruthless people are trying to kill me—
they have no regard for you.
15 But you, LORD, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
16 Turn to me and have mercy on me;
show your strength in behalf of your servant;
save me, because I serve you
just as my mother did.
17 Give me a sign of your goodness,
that my enemies may see it and be put to shame,
for you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
Canons of Dordt
Point 4 - Irresistible Grace
Article 10: Conversion as the Work of God
The fact that those who are called through the ministry of the gospel come to Christ and are brought to conversion
must not be credited to human effort,
as though one distinguishes oneself
by free choice
from others who are furnished with equal or sufficient grace for faith and conversion
(as the proud heresy of Pelagius maintains).
[Salvation] must be credited to God:
just as from eternity God chose his own in Christ,
so within time God effectively
calls them, grants them faith and repentance,
and,
having rescued them from the dominion of darkness,
brings them into the kingdom of his Son,
in order that they
may declare the wonderful deeds of the One
who called them out of darkness
into this marvelous light,
and may boast not in themselves,
but in the Lord,
as apostolic words frequently testify in Scripture.
Summary
Like so much Hebrew poetry, Psalm 86 has a chiastic structure. That's a writing style where ideas are presented in a particular order and then repeated in reverse order, like a mirror image, to highlight a central point. Here's how it looks charted out:
v1-4 - Save your servant, LORD
v5-6 - God's unfailing love
v7 - Trouble points us to Him
v8-10 - The world will glorify God
v11 - Teach me your way and to fear your name
v12-13 - I will glorify God
v14 - Those far from God give us trouble
v15- - God's unfailing love
v16-17 - Save your servant, LORD
We're accustomed to the stories we read/watch and the poems we listen to or sing having their primary point or meaning come at the end, but so often the Old Testament follows the Hebrew pattern of placing the main message of a narrative or psalm right smack in the middle, as David has done here.
Dig Deeper
There's lots of deep theology and practical advice here in Psalm 86, but today we only have the space to focus on the central idea that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, builds this entire psalm around. Here it is from the NET Bible:
11 O Lord, teach me how you want me to live.
Then I will obey your commands.
Make me wholeheartedly committed to you.
Notice that David's primary request is academic - that the LORD would teach. Loosely translated, David is asking the LORD to show me the road that I may walk in the direction you desire.
David also knows his weakness - a weakness that you and I share with him: our propensity for our heart (our intellect, emotions, and volition) to easily become distracted with the things of this world and wander away from the LORD. So David's final clause in this primary point is the ultimate prayer of alignment: to be made wholeheartedly committed to the LORD (NIV: give me an undivided heart, that I might fear your name).
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who alone is great and who does marvelous deeds;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray along with David that you will be wholeheartedly committed to fear the LORD;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: 1 Corinthians 12
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