Psalm 86:11. “Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;
knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name.”

The palmist has named a truth about my life: I live with a divided heart. My heart is divided between who I am and who I want to be, what I say and what I do, my joys and sorrows, promises made and those broken, my commitments and wanderings, living faithfully and living as if I were self-sufficient. The fragments of my heart are many. I am a spiritual Humpty Dumpty.

Maybe you also know this to be true about yourself. Perhaps you too can name the ways in which your heart is divided. I suspect we’re all, for various reasons, heart-broken and scattered.

My first response to my divided heart is usually to try harder, do better, and to fix the circumstances of my life. I’ve discovered, however, that this brand of glue just doesn’t hold things together.

The way of the Lord (and what I need to learn) is wholeheartedness. To live this way means I can hold nothing in reserve—I must be open and willing to risk the whole of my heart for God, in the service of others, seeking what Jesus is offering me with himself.

*Originally written for and published by Forward Day by Day.