I do not understand my own actions.
For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.
Romans 7:15
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
Psalm 86:11
Beatitude 6: Happy the pure in heart: they shall see God. (NJB)
The nineteenth-century lay theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote that "purity of heart is to will one thing." One thing, not two - between which we must then choose. But how to achieve such unity of purpose? How often have you said about some spiritual challenge: "On the one hand, I want to go in this direction, but on the other hand I am drawn to the opposite way"?
Even Paul the apostle confessed that too often he wanted to do one thing yet did another. Ultimately Paul resolved his conflict by seeing that in this own power he could not be always of one mind; only Christ could deliver him from his spiritual confusion. (Romans 7:21-25)
Could it be that this beatitude is not saying that first we must have purity of desire and as a reward will see God? Could it be instead that when we pray to be delivered from a double mind we see God in ways that only God can know? How appropriate to keep offering the petition of the psalmist quoted above, to seek an undivided heart.
What do you think?
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