“My son, give me thine heart…”

God’s Prayers That Only Man Can Answer

Every rational mind nurses a desire for something at one time or the other. Our immense God too, though absolute in power and limitless in His jurisdiction, has needs He wants to meet.  As His desired partner in the maintenance of His creation, His prayers are often directed at man to heed and answer.  Therefore, it will not be too strange to note that God prays to man; to me, you and everyone and pleads for our attention and our response.

This fact has not made any scratch to the fact that it is the man who needs and depends wholly on God at all times and for all things.  That, incontestably, is a piece of universal knowledge.  At the same time, there is so much to reveal about how God, on many occasions and despite His power arsenal, will not lift a finger in pursuit of His agenda on the earth without a ready vessel to fill a partnership gap.  The formation point of the partnership begins with mutual ownership of God and man, where God takes a man as His own and the man too may lay claim to having Him as a Father.  His pledge is that, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Corinthians 6v16).  Execution of His projects dwells on where God alone does all the parts that are connected with “great wonders…” that no one can handle, such wonders that build on the expression of His great power wielded through a chosen partner.

One of the requests that God directs to every man and to which He seeks a response is stated in Proverbs 23v26, “My son, give me thine heart…”.  The graciousness of this prayer may be seen in the fact that one does not even become His “son” or child until the heart of the person is surrendered for His habitation.  This is a kind of faith that God has woven around His demand and which dwells on His expectation that man will seize a great opportunity to yield his heart and truly become His “son”.

The yielding of our hearts has a starting point and milestones that progressively builds up to what the Bible has revealed to be eternally rewarding bargains.  Our dealings and walks with God begin with the yielding of our lives to Him to secure our salvation.  However, all the dreams we nurse, our aspirations, expectations for today and tomorrow and even everything we seek to build our future upon concerning our unborn generations and for which we may need divine assistance are anchored on the extent to which our hearts are yielded to Him in response to this particular prayer.

Every man in all the places where the gospel has made a debut has put up responses to this request of God within the range of a continuum.  While millions have found the fortitude to respond in some measure to the request, many on the other hand are yet to offer Him any chance.  Sadly enough, we have those who have jumped the queue to enrol in other areas of His dealings or pretended to have received His calling into the ministry but who are yet to answer this first call.

Despite the strength of His will, God does not and will never pull our hearts over against our wishes.  It is true that He owns the hearts of men, just like He owns the earth and the fullness thereof (Psalm 24v1).  But it is not in His character to intrude on choices which He has committed fully to our control.   Our readiness to yield to Him holds the key to unlocking all that we will be in time and eternity.  God needs our lives to touch the lives of many who are not yet or may never be yielded to Him if left alone.  By the time He owns and reigns in our hearts, He will direct them to what He wants us to do for Him.

Here is a painful truth.  The heart must belong to someone we have chosen to donate it to.  Many thin gods are lobbying around the altar of our hearts today to compete with God; our ambitions, vocations and numerous pursuits.    As God has His agenda for our individual lives, we also have our agenda for the same life, the self-same life that is at the loggerhead with His purposes, nearly all the time.  We have to face it the way it is so we can fully appreciate what is at stake.

Once more, you are welcome to a venture of a mutually rewarding journey.