As a spiritual leader, I am often pained by the paucity of our prayers.
Most of us come with a shopping list of needs, many of which are simply wants that may harm us. Of course, we should ask. It was Jesus himself who said, ‘Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you will receive’. Even though we are reminded in the bible that God already knows what we need, asking is one means of obeying.
But it should not be that we equate praying with asking. Supplication is just one aspect of prayer. And when we ask, the scope of God’s ability to give should not be underestimated. When “the Lord fulfils all your petitions” (verse 5) it should be that you have gained (or are gaining) wisdom, insight, vision, understanding and fortitude. It should be that you are learning to discern what is worth asking for and what is best done without. It should be that one has learned to look back over past missteps and spot ahead the errors lurking before they catch one unawares. In other words, if we ask right, we should be putting on new eyes for seeing more clearly than we have done before.
So, if the psalmist’s prayer is anything to help you “in the day of trouble,” then you recognise trouble soon enough to turn to the One who defends and delivers when trouble assails. If that One should send you help and strengthen you (verse 2), it should be that you don’t behave like a weakling with every problem that threatens because you’re becoming increasingly aware of how victory is claimed.
If the Lord should “remember all your offerings and accept your burnt sacrifice,” (verse 3) it must be that by now you know that it’s worth giving the very best, and sometimes giving up what worldly wisdom says you should hold on to rather than deprive yourself for the good of anyone ese.
If the Lord should “give you according to your own heart and fulfil all your counsel”(verse 4) which I take to mean that your wishes will come true, it must be that you have learned or are learning to even wish and want correctly. In other words, your shopping list is becoming tailored to fit what in essence is God’s will. Increasingly, you want what God wants, even when you don’t know it. And then, you will certainly not make a show of it, even though unknowingly you show it. Such a shopping list is trimmed of hurtful desires for yourself and others, and that is pleasing to God.
So, while others continue to trust in chariots (verse 7) which can win the spoils that belong to others; and some trust in horses that can trample on the just cause of the persecuted poor; the praying ones who are heard by God in turn hear what God is saying and they know what to do and what to abstain from doing.
While others trust in chariots and horses and shopping lists of material goods and ill-gotten victories, may we remember the Lord our God.
Then The Lord the king hears us when we call (v9). Amen,