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 is 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 Mercede’s 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 lips 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 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 is 84, which is the same numerical value as the word for “blood,” “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.   David understood that that the mouth plays an important role in a relationship.  Just as Samson 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 spoke 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 know that they could not be intimate if he did not speak his heart to her. When Samson spoke his heart to Delilah, a barrier fell between the two of them and they were able enter into an intimacy. The KJV translates this word for this intimacy as Delilah afflicted 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, and God will hear your heart.  But just as Samson speaking his heart to Delilah became the doorway to their intimacy, so too when we speak the words of our heart to God, that becomes the doorway to our 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 an answer to prayer but we feel no love in our hearts, no willingness to act upon that love and make the commitment that such love demands, then we will break God’s heart just as a would be lover would break a young woman’s heart by saying 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 with my lips unless that my heart has not first spoken.”  David was seeking to protect the heart of God.  As Jeanette Oaks titled one of her novels “Love Comes Softly.” Love for God comes from a daily walk and talk with Him, from getting to know Him.  Eventually, love comes softly and before you know it you are really saying you love Him from your heart.   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.   Expect to break his heart if you say with your mouth “I love you” when you have not allowed your heart the time it needs to bond with God’s heart.  Best 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 lips and heart will be united when I say: ’I love you.’”   Never let a word of love and praise pass from your lips that your heart has not first spoken.