A Fixed Heart

“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise.” (Psalm 57:4)

David says, “My heart is steadfast” 2x; it’s like he was saying, “My heart is made up; it won’t move. Trust me; it won’t move.” His heart was resolute. David was firm and decided and did not waver in his purpose.  He was committed to praising God above all else … even his troubles. He was not swayed or moved by the events that had occurred. He did not doubt the justice or goodness or mercy of God. He was determined to praise him; his heart is not shaken.

This is not as common as it should be =. People = waffle; they flip-flop; they change their convictions as often as they do their preferences.

Alexander Maclaren was a Baptist, Scottish minister from the late 1800s, and in a sermon entitled “The Fixed Heart,” Maclaren said, “For a fixed heart I must have a fixed determination and not a mere fluctuation and soon broken intention. I must have a steadfast affection, and not merely a fluttering love that, like some butterfly, lights now on this, now on that sweet flower, but which has a flight straight as a carrier pigeon to its cot, which shall bear me direct to God. And I must have a continuous realization of my dependence upon God and of God’s sweet sufficiency going with me all through the dusty day. … Ah, brethren! How unlike the broken, interrupted, divergent lines that we draw! … Is our average Christianity fairly represented by such words as these of my text? Do they not rather make us burn with shame when we think that a man who lived in the twilight of God’s revelation, and was weighed upon by distresses such as wrung this psalm out of him, should have poured out this resolve, which we who love in the sunlight and are flooded with blessings find it hard to echo with sincerity and truth? Fixed hearts are rare amongst the Christians of thus day.”

How resolute is your trust in God?