Pondering In Your Heart

(Note: St. Augustine is famous for writing a book called “The Confessions,” which was written completely as a prayer to God. In the same spirit, I plan to write these posts as a prayer to God.)

“Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD.” (Psalm 4:4–5, ESV)

Be angry, and do not sin…

Heavenly Father, I have to admit, this is a struggle. I often find myself angry and sinning at the same time. I get angry about things because I don’t have what I want (James 4:1-2). I want peace and quiet, yet someone takes it away from me. I want rest from working, yet it disappears. I want vehicles that don’t break down, yet they continue to break down. So, I get angry and I sin. 

Yet, Father, I know that it is possible to be angry but not sin. Help me be angered by the things that anger you. Help me hate the things you hate and love the things you love. That’s truly what I want, Father. I want to hate sin. I want to love and enjoy following you. Help me walk in the path you’ve laid out for me—running away from sin, toward You. 

…ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.

Father, I know that I’m often much too busy. I’m often running this way and that, never stopping to “be still”—never stopping to ponder. I think I’m afraid of what I’ll hear when I stop and listen. I’ll have to think about difficult things: where I’m going, what I’m doing, how I’ve messed up, how I’ve cared for others, how I’ve sinned in my anger. It’s easier for me to stay busy and distract myself from these thoughts.

Yet, Father, you tell me to stop and listen. You tell me to be silent—be still and know that You are God. So, help me slow down and listen. Help me stop doing, doing, doing, and rest. Help me stop talking and hear what You have to say to me. 

Father, help me go through my day with thoughts of you always before me. Help me wake up with thoughts of you and carry those thoughts with me until I lay down in bed at night. Then, as I lay down, help me drift off to sleep thinking of you. 

Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD.

Father, that’s really what you want, isn’t it? You don’t want me to “dutifully” follow you with my heart far from you. You don’t want me to grudgingly take step after step and I walk down your path. You have told me that “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

So, Father, help me come before you broken and resting solely on you. Help me no longer trust in myself, my friends, my job, my government, etc. but fully trust in you. Father, help me to daily offer myself as a living sacrifice to you. Then, I will rightly worship you. Then, I will truly begin to know what it looks like to walk in your will. 

Father, I offer my life as a living sacrifice. I trust you with everything.