Psalms 141:3: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips.”
Be sure it’s true when you say “I love you.”
It’s sin to tell a lie.
Millions of hearts have been broken,
Just because these words were spoken,
“I love you, Yes I do, I love you.”
If you break my heart, I’ll die,
So be sure it’s true, when you say I love you
It’s a sin to tell a lie.
-Billy Mayhew-
Upon close examination of the context of this verse, David is asking God to watch over his words or what he speaks when he prays. Yet, God does not hear the words of our mouth, but the cry of our heart. I may pray with my lips: “God give me a candy apple red Mercedes Benz, but my heart may be saying: “Don’t you do it either, given him a broken down Ford Focus so he can learn to trust in you.” God hears and answer every prayer, the only reason we don’t realize the answer is that we are expecting the answer from the request of our mouths and not of our hearts.
So why is David asking God to guard his words if it doesn’t matter what he says, only what is in his heart? The Jewish sages explain this verse by saying that when David asked that God set a watch over his mouth and keep the door of his lips he is asking God to hear the cry of his heart, and that he speak only what his heart says. His lips will speak the desire of his soul, but his heart will speak the desire of God. He wants his soul’s desires to be God’s desires. If his soul and heart are not united, it will break God’s heart just as it would for a would be lover to tell a woman he loves her when in his heart he does not.
It is interesting that the word for mouth is just a one letter word “Pei” and the word for door is a one letter word “Daleth.” Those two letters together form the word redemption. The numerical value of Pei Daleth is 84, which is the same numerical value as the word forblood, escape and knowing as in intimate knowing.
Romans 10:9-10 tells us that it is with the heart that we believe and are justified and it is with our mouths that we confess and are saved. The Aramaic word for mouth is pum spelled Pei, Final Mem which is speaking the hidden knowledge of your heart. David understood that that the mouth plays an important role in a relationship. Samson is the perfect example of one who came to that painful realization. Four times Samson spoke to Delilah with his lips. The fifth time he spoke to her with his heart. After being deceived four times, you would think Delilah would really question the fifth time, yet she was so certain he told the truth the fifth time that she collected her reward before offering proof that he had spoken the truth. How could she and the Philistines be so certain? Because the fifth time, the Bible says, he spoke his heart.
Samson longed to be intimate with Delilah but Delilah made it known that they could not be intimate if he did not speak his heart to her. When Samson spoke his heart to Delilah, a barrier broke down between the two of them and they were able enter into an intimacy. The KJV translates this word for this intimacy as Delilah afflicting him — some affliction. But once he spoke his heart to Delilah, that broke down the wall that kept them from being intimate.
David realized the importance of speaking his heart to God. You can pray many words, but it is really your heart that God is listening to. Just as when Samson spoke his heart to Delilah he open the doorway (Daleth) to their intimacy, so too when we speak the words of our heart to God, it is those words that become the doorway to entering the heart of God and entering into an intimacy with God.
But if we speak words of love to God because we want something from Him, or we want an answer to prayer and it does not come from love born in our hearts and there is no willingness to act upon that love nor to make the commitment that such love demands, then we will break God’s heart just as a would be lover would break the heart of his spouse if he says he loves her just to get something he wants from her.
I believe this is what David was saying in Psalms 141:3: “God don’t let me say something intimate to you unless it is first in my heart.” David was seeking to protect the heart of God. How does that love enter one’s heart? Jeanette Oaks titled one of her novels “Love Comes Softly.” That is really the best way to describe how we fall in love with God. Love for God comes from a daily walking and talking with Him, from getting to know (yadah – sharing intimate knowledge) of our hearts with Him. Eventually, love comes softly and before you know it your mouth (Pei) is really speaking the words of your heart to God. But if you do not spend the time with Him, you do not spend the time in His word, and you just go about your business and give an occasional “hoody do!” to God you can expect to break his heart if you say with your mouth “I love you.” For as the old song writer says: “It’s A Sin to Tell A Lie.” When you have not allowed your heart the time it needs to bond with God’s heart you cannot say to Him: “I love you.” It is best that you pray like David, “Guard my words, don’t let me speak any more words of intimacy than what is in my heart. If it is not there, I will spend the time alone with you until my heart truly bonds with your heart and then my mouth (Pei) and heart will be united when I say: “I love you.’”
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