“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name”(Psalm 86:11 NKJV).
A couple of months ago, God gave me a specific Scripture to pray for a loved one. A few days ago, He impressed upon me that I needed to pray that same Scripture over myself—and over my entire family.
Then, last night, I felt Him tell me that I needed to memorize it, along with a few other Scriptures.
- This morning, our pastor preached on that very Scripture.
His message was about unity—unity in our hearts, unity in our relationships, and unity within the body of Christ.
Don’t you love it when God begins to bring confirmation through so many different avenues? Sometimes He speaks something to our hearts, and then He begins to echo it through circumstances, Scripture, teaching, and other people.
I believe the message on unity was the missing piece.
One thing the Lord has also been highlighting to me is the role of the Holy Spirit as our Teacher. Jesus said He would lead us into all truth, and I’m realizing more and more that unity with God begins with attentiveness—pausing long enough to listen, to reflect, and to let His Word settle deeply in our hearts. It’s not just about hearing Scripture, but allowing it to shape our responses in real time.
When I first began studying Psalm 86:11, several words began to stand out to me.
The first word that jumped out at me was teach.
We can say we want to grow in Christ, but sometimes what we really need to do is give God an open invitation:
“Lord, teach me.”
That sounds simple, but it requires humility.
The Lord tells us to cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us. But He also invites us to let Him teach us—to show us His ways, His heart, and His perspective.
I’ve learned that when I ask God to teach me, I’m not simply asking Him to give me new information.
Sometimes I also need to unlearn a few things.
There are beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, fears, and ways of thinking that I’ve picked up along the way that don’t line up with His truth. Growing in Christ isn’t always about adding something new. Sometimes it’s about allowing God to remove what doesn’t belong.
Then the next word that stood out to me was your.
“Teach me Your way, O Lord.”
I have to admit, there have been times in my life when I was trying to do the opposite. Instead of allowing God to teach me His way, I was trying to teach God mine.
Maybe you’ve never been guilty of grabbing the pen out of God’s hand and trying to write down what you think He needs to know.
But I have.
Through the years, I’ve learned how ridiculous that is.
Of course, it took a lot of “rough drafts” being thrown into the wastebasket first. LOL!
Then I came to the word will.
“…that I will walk in Your truth.”
Willing is a conscious choice.
If I’m going to will to do something, I’m not merely going to think about it. I’m going to make the effort to walk it out.
So if I’m asking God to teach me His way, I also have to be willing to walk in what He shows me.
That brings me back to another important word:
Your.
“…that I may walk in Your truth.”
Not my truth.
Your truth.
We live in a culture that often tells us to “own your own truth.”
I don’t know about you, but owning my own truth got me into a world of hurt.
So now I choose to own God’s truth—even when I have to walk in it before it feels right.
Sometimes obedience comes before understanding.
Sometimes faith means saying, “Lord, I don’t understand this yet, but I trust that Your way is better than mine.”
The next word that stands out is the word pastor preached about–unite.
I was reading Scripture the other night and asking the Lord to unite my heart to His. Because I know that when my heart is united with His, I begin to see what He sees and hear how He hears. It shapes the way I love, the way I respond, and the way I walk with others. This is where the message on unity becomes so powerful—because unity with God doesn’t stay private or isolated. It overflows into unity in our relationships and within the body of Christ. It brings alignment between what God is doing in me and what He is doing around me. When my heart is undivided and fully yielded to Him, I become more attentive to what He is showing me, and more sensitive to what He is revealing in my own heart and in the hearts of others.
Which brings me to the last three words in the scripture.
“Fear Your name.”
Those words brought another realization.
One of the things that can hinder us in our Christian walk is fearing the names of other people more than we fear the name of God.
I spent a good portion of my life consumed with what other people thought about me, my family, my circumstances, my faith, ect. The list can be unending and the consequences exhausting.
Fearing others is self-protection.
Psalm 86:11 brings us back into alignment.
Teach me Your way.
I will walk in Your truth.
Give me an undivided heart.
Let me fear Your name.
If you’ve never done a study on the names of God, I would encourage you to do one. It can become a powerful tool in your spiritual arsenal because each name reveals something about who He is.
For example, Jehovah-Rapha means “the Lord who heals.”
If my hope for healing is ultimately in the Lord, I don’t have to fear the process or the judgments or well-meant opinions of others.
God may give me a miracle or use doctors, medicine, natural remedies or a combination of all.
But ultimately, my hope is in the Lord.
And when I know His name, I know His character.
Perhaps that’s part of what God has been teaching me through this Scripture.
He isn’t simply asking me to memorize words on a page.
He’s inviting me into a deeper relationship with Him.
Teach me.
Your way.
Your truth.
Your name.
And perhaps the greatest prayer I can pray is:
“Lord, give me an undivided heart.”
A heart that isn’t pulled in a hundred different directions.
A heart that isn’t ruled by fear of people.
A heart that doesn’t continually grab the pen and try to rewrite God’s plan.
A heart that is willing to learn, willing to obey, willing to surrender, and willing to walk in His truth.
And then, as He brings confirmation from Scripture, from teaching, from circumstances, and from the people He places around us, we can recognize what He is doing.
Sometimes God speaks one piece.
Then He brings another.
Then another.
And suddenly, what seemed like separate pieces begin to form a complete picture.
That’s when we realize:
God was speaking all along.
And perhaps the missing piece wasn’t something entirely new.
Perhaps it was simply the piece that brought everything else into unity.