Moment of Meditation: Meditations of the Heart (Psalm 19:14)

Original Broadcast: May 2009

Monthly Theme: The Lord's Prayer

Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in Your sight,
O YHWH, my Rock and my Redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)

Meditations of the Heart

In April 2000, a mysterious little prayer became the sensation of American Evangelicalism. This prayer, spoken by a man named Jabez, is found in the midst of the genealogies in 1 Chronicles.

Jabez prayed, "Oh that You would bless me and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!" (1 Chronicles 4:10). The chronicler says, "And God granted what he asked."

What does this mean? Jabez wanted more stuff and God gave it to him. That's what the book told us and all we had to do was repeat the prayer daily for so long and we'd have our hearts' desires. But is that always good?

Maybe not. You should be like David, praying that your heart's meditation and your words be acceptable to God. The words and meditations that Jesus gave us in the Lord's Prayer we know are acceptable because He told His disciples, "When you pray, say" (Luke 11:2). Then our words and meditations are acceptable to our Father in Heaven. That we can be assured of. Amen.