Psalms 141:3: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips.”

 

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 Porsche,” 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. We are so in the flesh we do not hear the cry 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 Talmud teaches that this verse is 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.

 

A friend shared with me today how she prays through. She explained that it takes a while for her to pray because she starts off praying with her flesh or her lips. She is praying all her own desires which may not be God’s desires.  Eventually, she begins sharing her heart with God.  “Oh God, help me to really love you, help me to really serve you.”  Suddenly she finds herself in a sort of flow and before long she is hardly aware of what she is praying as the word flow from her heart and she is praying in the Spirit.  She has broken through the barrier of the flesh. Many Christians just do not pray long enough to break that barrier.  They pray the simple “Now I lay me down to sleep” and then run out of gas.

 

Another problem is that too often we Christians pray with our lips, especially in public prayer.  At least for me.  I find I am trying to make an impression around those that I am praying with. I want them to know that I am really holy and pious, perhaps ready to model for a holy card. I am careful of each word I use, the tone and volume of my voice and to be sure I raise my voice at the proper time for that dramatic effect.   I mean who listens to these loyalty oaths anyways, if you were God would you?  About the only thing I accomplished was to determine if my shoes needed a shine.

 

It is interesting that the word for mouth is the word Pei like the letter Pei and the word for door is Daleth like the letter Daleth. In fact if you take these two letters and put them together you form the word for 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 this 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 with her if he did not speak his heart to her. When Samson spoke his heart to Delilah, a wall that stood between the two of them collapsed and they were able enter into an intimacy.

 

David realized the importance of speaking his heart to God. You can pray many words, but God only listens to your heart. 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: I would paraphrase this verse as: “May my lips never speak a word to God that my heart has not first spoken.” David was seeking to protect the heart of God.  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.  Christians are great at talking to God: “I want this, I need this, I need you’re your help Oh God.”  Do we ever talk with God. “How long has it been since you talked with the Lord, How long since you shared your heart’s hidden secrets” as Moser Lister once wrote.

 

When a man or woman share their heart’s hidden secrets with each other they will eventually fall in love. So too with God.  Love comes softly and before you know it you are really sharing your love for Him from your heart. If you do not spend time with Him, you do not spend the time in His word, that time on your knees and you just go about your business and give an occasional “hoody do!” to God you will break His heart if  you say “I love you with your lips.   Like glue, once applied you need to wait for it to bond, bonding takes time, so too doees bonding with God’s heart.  It is best you pray like David, “Guard my words, don’t let me speak any more words of intimacy than what is in my heart.” Or as I like to interpret it: “May my lips never speak a word to you Oh, God, that my heart has not first spoken.”

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