A Prayer Of The Broken Hearted

There was a prayer request for someone's mother who had congestive heart failure. We also prayed for someone's friend who was having heart surgery. Then came on of the strangest prayer requests I've ever heard. Someone asked for prayer concerning their own heart. “Please pray that I would have a broken and contrite heart.”

I knew the reference from Psalms. It was David's response when Nathan confronted him with his sin concerning Bathsheba. A few verse earlier David had prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”Psalms 51:10 David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and then when he found out she was pregnant he tried to cover his sin by having her husband murdered. David couldn't clean his own heart he could only offer his broken heart as a sacrifice to God. Not only that but it wasn't until God exposed his sin that he was able to repent of it, until then he just kept covering it up.

What my friend prayed was that God would make her aware of her sins and then cause her to be able to grieve those sins so that she too could offer God the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart. This could be a scary prayer because you open yourself up to be humble. God sent Nathan to confront David sometimes the Holy Spirit uses my husband to point out what I cannot see myself. My heart is often calloused by the sins I have committed and it can be dangerous to point them out to me.

Why would anyone want to have a broken and contrite heart? Why would anyone pray such a strange prayer? When I pray this prayer it shows I want God more than I want my sin and that I am willing to be broken over my sin. The opposite is to cling to my sin and continually cover it up. When I bring to God the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart according to Psalm 147 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalms 34 says “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” What I am really asking is to be healed.

O Lord, Your word teaches me that You dwell in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Because I want You to dwell with me and I want to be revived I will join my friend and pray, “Lord, please give me a broken and contrite heart.”