Psalm 62:8: “Trust in him at all times; [ye] people, pour out your heart before him: God [is] a refuge for us. Selah.”
In 1902 Adelaide Pollard was hoping to go to Africa as a missionary but was unable to raise the funds needed to pay for her missionary venture. She became greatly discouraged, she had set her heart on being a missionary and just could not understand why God was not blessing her efforts to serve Him in this capacity. She keep this inner pain to herself, but it was wearing her down. She so wanted to serve God as a missionary, had planned on it, trained for it and now it appeared like she would have to head in another direction with her life. How could God not honor such a noble request?
She attended a prayer meeting where she heard an elderly woman pray: “It really doesn’t matter what you do with us, Lord, just have your own way with our lives.” God immediately led Pollard to Jeremiah 18:6: “O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay [is] in the potter’s hand, so [are] ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.”
That night she went home and just wept before the Lord. She cried out all her disappointments, discouragements, rejections and heartbreak and then she began to pray a prayer. Suddenly she found that her prayer had taken on the form of a poem. After praying this prayer she immediately wrote out the words that she had prayed. Before long music was added to these words, this prayer poem which became a classic hymn, one which I sang even today to myself as a prayer to God. We don’t sing hymns anymore, I do mourn its passing. There are times I long for the hymns, the Ballads that speak of the struggle of past saints and their ultimate victory. But times change and I guess that is the way the old cookie bounces, or ball bounces, the cookie crumbles or something like that. Anyway, I remembering singing Miss Pollard’s hymn when I was just a child and I remember singing it with all my heart and that song still returns to me to this day.
Have Thine own way Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.
Every modern English translation I read renders Psalms 62:8 as pour out your heart. I don’t think we need to expound too much on this to explain what it means to pour out your heart. Commentators give us a good example in I Samuel 1:13-15 with Hannah pouring out her heart to God. Yet, in this case she merely spoke her heart, the word debar is used which is speaking your heart. However, in Psalm 62:8 David is not saying to just speak your heart to God but to shaphak your heart to God. The word shaphak comes from an old Canaanite word for melting wax and pouring it into a mold. The word pour is not a wrong translation, it is just not a complete translation for this word. You need to melt and pour your heart out to God.
What does it mean to melt your heart? I think Miss Pollard knew what it meant. Her heart was solid, it was set on going to Africa as a missionary. It was as if the desires of her heart were set in steel. That heart made of steel had to be melted. Only when it is melted can God then begin to mold it into what He really wants to do with it.
What could be more noble than going to Africa as a missionary? Surely God would say: “Oy, what a dedicated spirit I have, why I must grant her request immediately. Rich man, I command you to give this saintly woman the funds to go to Africa.” But that was not what God wanted from Miss Pollard, He gave her gifts to be used in another capacity and until she surrendered her heart and desires to God did go reveal to her the gift that He had given her, a gift of poetry to write poetic prayers. If that was all that God had created her for was to write some hymns, even this one hymn Have Thine Own Way, it would have accomplished more than she could have accomplished on the mission field in Africa. That song went on to bring comfort, encouragement and surrender to millions of Christians over the years, this one included. She wrote over 100 other songs and taught at the Christian and Missionary Alliance School training future missionaries. Through her work she prepared hundreds of others to go to the mission field.
You know for many Christians things just do not go the way that they hope or plan. As they look over the many years of their life they can only shake their heads in despair as they consider how so few things ever turned out as they had hoped or planned. Perhaps, like Adelaide Pollard, it is time to fall before God with all your shattered hopes and plans and pray the prayer that Miss Pollard prayed over 100 years ago, Have Thine Own Way Lord and let God begin to melt your heart filled with your own desires, hopes and plans and then pour it into His mold and let your heart take on His desires, hopes and plans.
So I continue on my journey to the heart of God. But I know one thing I am looking for when I discover His heart. I am looking to find my heart firmly planted in His, a heart that has been shaphak, melted and molded to His desires.
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