My name is Faith Burke. I'm a wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mom of four kids, eight and under, three boys and a girl. We live in the Texas countryside just outside Fort Worth. I have been a Desiring God ministry partner for over 14 years. You're listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.

Faith has been a ministry partner of ours for 14 years, back to her days in college. It's amazing. I want you to hear her story in just a moment. But first onto today's question about the divided heart. The heart, even the heart of a believer, puts up resistance against God.

It's frustrating, but it's not unusual. And it leads to a great question from an anonymous listener today, a man. Dear Pastor John, hello, in the episode titled "Why is my delight in God so short-lived?" That was APJ 903. There you suggested one way to make our delight in God last longer.

You said, "When you read your Bible every day, pause before you read in earnestly, with as much heartfelt longing as you can muster. Pray to God that he would come and meet you in the reading of Scripture and open the eyes of your heart and show you what is really there and make himself real and bring about amazing changes in your life." However, Pastor John, when I muster a longing that God would come and meet me, I find my heart is unwilling to welcome God.

It seems afraid of meeting God. It doesn't want to be with God. And this upsets me. On one hand, I want myself to be willing to meet God sincerely and enjoy the sweet time with him. On the other hand, my heart opposes that. Such chaos inside. What can I do when I find my heart is resisting?

So let me repeat the key issue as I hear it. He says, "When I muster a longing," that's a significant phrase, "When I muster a longing that God would come and meet me, I find my heart unwilling to welcome God. Seems afraid of meeting God. It does not want to be with God.

What can I do when I find my heart resisting?" So this is clearly a divided heart. It's not a heart entirely welcoming, and it's not a heart entirely resisting, because he says, "I muster a longing. I muster a longing for God. Muster a longing." And he says, "When I do, I find my heart unwilling to welcome God." So this heart is in some measure a longing heart for God and in some measure a resistant heart to God.

Now that's important for him and for us to see, because if we don't see this division in the heart, that it's a divided heart, we might overstate the problem and think there's no real root of desire for God in me. Or we might understate the problem and think that our resistance is no big deal.

It can't be that. I can't be resisting God. And it seems to me that this embattled heart is typical of the Christian life, even if we don't all describe it the way he does with the language of longing and resisting. None of us as Christians has a consistently united heart in longing for God.

I have often tried to help others in their prayer lives by sharing what helps me, namely the acronym IOUS. And I would commend this to our friend with a focus on the letter U, I O U S, which in my opening of this acronym doesn't usually get a lot of focus.

I'm usually focusing on the S, the O, or the I. But this man needs the U, it seems to me. So the letter, let me just work through it real quick. The letter I stands for incline. Psalm 119.36, "Incline my heart to your testimonies, we pray." So we ask God to take away resistance.

We ask God to incline us toward God and his Word instead of away from God. And so we admit this is a work of God. He would not be praying, the psalmist would not be praying like this if the inclination was finally in our own power. He wouldn't be asking God to incline his heart.

We plead with God to take our hearts in his hands and incline them, bend them toward his Word. Then the letter O stands for open. I O open, Psalm 119.18, "Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your instruction." We need God to do the miracle on the eyes of our heart so that we can see the truth and beauty and value of who he is right there in his Word.

If we are left to ourselves, we admit by praying, if we are left to ourselves in meditating on God's Word, we will see nothing of spiritual beauty and worth. And then comes the third letter, U, which in this case is going to be especially important. It stands for unite.

Psalm 8611, "Unite my heart to fear your name." What an amazing prayer. Unite my heart. So what's the problem that this psalmist is praying to solve? The problem is a divided heart, and that's what we're dealing with here in this question on APJ. This man has a longing for God and he has a resistance to God.

His heart is divided. It needs to be united in its longing for God. So I would say to our friend, recognize that you have a divided heart and plead in prayer Psalm 8611, "Oh God, unite my heart to fear your name." And of course, fear, fear your name doesn't mean feel a resistance to God's coming because you're afraid of him.

Just the opposite. Fear of running from him. What we fear when we fear God is we fear resisting him. We fear pushing him away. We fear the horrible outcome of hardening our hearts against the sweetness of his fellowship. God's chosen people who embrace Christ as their treasured savior are the apple of his eye.

They are his loved ones. Or as the psalmist says, the friendship of the Lord is for those who, surprisingly, fear him. Do you hear the connection between Psalm 8611 and Psalm 2514? Unite my heart to fear your name and the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him.

The fear of God does not drive us away from God. The fear of God drives us into God where there are the pleasures of friendship. So pray Psalm 8611, "Unite my heart to fear your name," and then preach to yourself Psalm 2514, the friendship, the sweet private counsels of the Lord are precisely for those whose hearts are united to fear God's name.

Then preach to yourself the promise of the new covenant in Jeremiah 32, 39, where God says, "I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for their own good, that may fear me." I will give them a single united heart that they may fear me forever.

So now we have not only the prayer that our hearts would be united in the fear of God rather than resistance to God, and not only do we have the promise that friendship, the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, now we have, Jeremiah 32, a new covenant.

That means a blood-bought, Jesus blood-bought promise that God himself takes out the heart of stone and gives a united single heart. I will give them a heart to fear me. So when you find this division in your heart and a resistance begins to rise up, pushing out the welcome and the longing, declare to yourself, preach to yourself and to your sin and to Satan, "No, no!" You might even say it out loud.

I talk out loud sometimes to my sin and to Satan. This resistance is not the new covenant work of Jesus that he bought for me. No, it's not. The new covenant work that he bought with his blood is a single new united heart that fears God, welcomes God, enjoys the friendship of God.

It is united in its love for God, and you throw, you throw the truth of the blood-bought new covenant promise in the face of the deceiver, and then you meditate. Perhaps on James 1.8 and James 4.8, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

And you read that and you call down all the purifying power, purifying. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. You call down the purifying power of the blood of Jesus. Christ died that we might have a single heart for him. So don't give up. I'm saying this now to our friend.

Don't give up. Don't surrender to a divided heart. Resist the resistance of God. Call out to God for a single heart and fix your mind on the promises. Friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him. He will give a single united heart to his blood-bought people. And the "S," the lonely "S" at the end of our acronym, I-O-U-S, will come to pass.

Psalm 90, 14, "Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love." So good. Thank you, Pastor John. It's an important way to address the divided heart. Well, you met Faith at the top of the episode. Faith is a wife, a homemaker, and a homeschooling mom of four kids, eight and under, three boys and a girl.

They all live just outside of Fort Worth, Texas. Faith has been a Desiring God ministry partner with us for over 14 years now, dating back to when she was a student in college. It's amazing. I want you to meet Faith now. She's on the phone with me from her home.

Faith, thank you for taking a moment from your very busy days at home to talk with us. I've heard you say in the past that Desiring God Resources, and John Piper's ministry in particular, built your backbone of faith back in your 20s. Share that story with us here on the podcast.

Yes. So I was on a mission trip in Italy with YWAM when I read my first John Piper book, The Dangerous Duty of Delight. And so, you know, like many 20 year olds back then, I was drawn to this radical, solid, biblical, loving God with your mind approach to my faith.

So then back home in Texas, I started to attend conferences where Pastor John was speaking and I started listening to Desiring God CDs and reading articles from the Desiring God website. I was hungry for answers to life's tough questions. Desiring God and John Piper built the backbone of my faith in my 20s, and I'm so grateful.

So then I got married in 2012. I suffered six difficult pregnancies over the next seven years. I was hospitalized, I was losing weight. I had hyperemesis gravidarum. We lost two babies. And yet God remains faithful and Desiring God continued to be a guiding light. From the beginning, John Piper would tackle these hard questions and he didn't skirt around them.

He didn't give easy, feel good, fun sermons. He really challenged us in our 20s and he gave us something more to live for. He convinced us that truly God is most glorified in us when we're most satisfied in Him. And he promoted this, you know, radical lifestyle changes, like going on a mission trip to an unreached people group, you know, and why are we asking the question, is it safe?

He just really challenged us to not waste our life. And that just really struck a chord with me. And so just his unshakable faith in God, his confidence in God's sovereignty, the consistency in his message and his life, he just really modeled the kind of Christian that I wanted to be.

You now homeschool four kiddos, so your days are very full and busy. And this podcast and Desiring God Resource is coming to play in your parenting too. Explain how that works. Yeah. So, you know, I never realized in all the reading and learning from Desiring God that I did in my single years, how that would prove to be such a resource in mothering.

For example, like tough questions that my kids ask me about God and how life works. They ask me all the time, these kind of questions. And for example, after one of my tough miscarriages, my little son, Ozzy, I think he was four or five at the time, asked, "But mommy, why did the baby die?" Trying to wrap their little minds around these hard life situations.

And I was able to draw from what I'd read and learned from Desiring God about God and about his sovereignty and just give them solid little kid answers like, "You know, honey, mommy doesn't know why, but we do know that God's good and God had a purpose for this little baby, even if he only lived in my tummy." And so it's just a, it's a big responsibility shaping these little, you know, biblical life perspectives.

And I'm just so thankful for these resources. One of the things I love about Desiring God is the accessibility. If anything happens, like some sort of tragedy, just at my fingertips, I can pick up my phone and go to the website and enter in a question or look up a verse or search for a hard topic.

And these articles pop up that I know are biblically solid, they're solid articles, and I can find answers and encouragement also for myself and then to encourage other people with. Sobering. Sobering. Wow. I mean, it's just so great to have those that you know and love. I mean, it encourages us beyond what you can imagine to know that our resources are accessible for you to find them and then to use them as you serve others.

That is just awesome, Faith. Thank you. You're talking right now to a bunch of listeners to the podcast, many of whom have never given in the past. What would you say to them in this opportunity for them to join you as a partner with Desiring God? Yeah, so I would just say pray about it.

You know, pray about how God has used Desiring God in your life. And I would say that even small amounts matter. I gave back when I was a poor single student, you know, eating ramen for dinner. I didn't have a lot of money, but I was so impacted by the ministry.

I wanted to give back. And then after I got married with my husband, we just prayed about it and wanted to give together. And I was just so thankful for what Desiring God is doing. So thankful for the help and the encouragement that they're offering people and all of it for free.

I mean, it's unbelievable the amount of resources that are on the site for free. And I just wanted to be part of that. You know, the staff at Desiring God has become like a family to us. They walked with us through those miscarriages. They prayed for us. And it's just it's just been such an honor and a blessing to be a partner with them.

Partner for 14 years back to your college years, Faith, you have made a huge investment in us. I thank you. It's been delightful to hear your story today. Thank you. We love you guys. You can see why I love talking with our ministry partners. It's always so encouraging. As we near the end of the year, it's a great reminder that we have generous friends all over Texas and all over the US and all over the world, really, who support this ministry, friends who have profited from Desiring God personally and then who have become partners with us to get behind the resources that we produce, to get them out and to make them free.

And if those resources have impacted you through our articles, our books, our sermons, videos, this podcast, that's because someone has donated to make those resources available free of charge to you. And now you can make it possible for others to access them as well all over the world free of charge.

To do so, become a monthly ministry partner. So much of our financial support comes from folks who give on average $30 a month. To set up monthly giving, go online to give.desiringgod.org. That's give.desiringgod.org. It is greatly appreciated. I'm your host Tony Rehnke and Pastor John and I return on Monday, diving back into that hotly debated text of Romans 9.22.

See you then. Have a great weekend.