Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary. Psalm 28:2 NKJV
Have you ever noticed that when our children are babies, they love to tug on our hair, grab on to our noses and play a game of peek-a-boo? Their persistence and tireless delight at this are a bit puzzling until we realize that what they really want is for us to see and hear them. That longing to be seen and heard is David’s prayer. He asks for help, hopes for God to bring a solution to his problems, but more than anything else, David wants to know that God is listening. The difference between, just wanting an answer and wanting for God to listen, is like the difference between ordering a new game for your kids to play and taking the time to sit down and play it with them. One will occupy them and keep them out of your hair, but the other will give you both time to get to know one another better. Sure, God can answer our prayers in an immediately, but what He also longs for us to get know Him better and realize that He is always listening. So, let’s be grateful, not only for the answers to our prayers, but just like King David, let’s be grateful that God hears our prayers and listens to our pleas for mercy!
Blessed be the Lord! For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. Psalm 28:6
May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary,
and give you support from Zion!
Psalm 20:1-2 ESV
One day when our seven-year-old son was walking home from school, a group of three older boys began pushing him, throwing his books in the snow and giving him a hard time. Unfortunately for them, my wife, Nancy, happened to be watching out our apartment window, and immediately went into action. In seconds she flew down the stairs and out the door. You never saw three kids runs so fast once they had caught sight of their victim’s angry mom bearing down on them. Fortunately for everyone involved she never quite caught them, but it was the last time that they picked on Chris that year! In the same way God is looking out the window and watching for us as we are on the way home to Him. But you might think that asking God for help when we have problems is a spiritual no-no or even a bit selfish. But nothing could be further from the truth. God loves to answer our cry. Just as Nancy was not annoyed to immediately come Chris’ defense, the Lord eagerly runs to our aid. Today’s verse also tells us that the name of the Lord is our protection. When we call for help in Jesus’ name, our enemies are terrified and scurry for cover, not because of us but because they see Him angrily chasing them down! Finally, the Psalm tells us that God sends help from His sanctuary. Now this sanctuary is not some place that God goes to hide, instead it is the holiest place in Heaven. It is where the Father sits on His throne, surrounded by millions of angels and saints falling down in worship. Its floor is pure gold, and its support columns shake at the sound of His voice. Yet surrounded by all this eternal splendor, God is not irritated when He hears our cry. He does not mind putting down what He is doing to get involved in our life. No! God rushes to our rescue because we are His. He cares about us and we are precious and loved. So, if you are facing trouble, grief or even life-threatening circumstances today, remember that your Heavenly Father is watching over you. He is listening for your cry and will eagerly answer our prayers when we cry to Him in the day of our trouble!
O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.
Psalm 10:17-18 ESV
When we are in trouble, we often busy ourselves in an attempt to find a solution or waste valuable time complaining to others. But while we are rushing around trying to fix things on our own, we forget to simply put our trust in God and ask for His help. Talking about prayer without actually doing it, when we are in a crisis, is like talking about a life jacket, without putting it on after we have fallen overboard! I love that today’s verse, comes at the end of a prayer which King David began in verse one in which he starts by saying. “Why are you so far away?” and “Why are you hiding Yourself?” When we are in trouble, David’s prayer is a great model for us to follow. Notice, he doesn’t start out by mouthing some lifeless, holy sounding words. He tells God exactly how he feels! If you read through the Psalms, you will discover that, not all of them are, “The Lord is my Shepherd” kind of prayers. In fact, complaining to God is actually one of David’s favorite things and God included those prayers of lament because He wanted us to know, that He is listening and that He hears us when we cry out to Him.
First, David begins by being specific in his complaints. As we move on through the next several verses, we find that he doesn’t waste time by just saying, “Everybody hates me, I guess I just go eat worms.” No! David itemizes the things about which he is ticked off and honestly tells God about them. “The wicked is pursuing the poor…the wicked is boasting of his desires…His mouth is filled with cursing…He says in his heart, ‘God has forgotten.” When David does get to the end of his laundry list of issues in verse fourteen, he takes a deep breath and moves on to requests.
Then, David doesn’t pray like we sometimes do – “Bless all the missionaries or bring revival to our nation.” Those are great sounding prayers, but “Rescue the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram or heal my grandchild who is suffering with kidney disease”, are the kind of specific requests, that David prays believing God for specific answers. “Break the arm of the wicked… call his wickedness to account… hear the desire of the afflicted… strengthen their heart.” If you are like me, you may find that writing your requests down will help you to stay on track. Every few weeks when I update my list, I am amazed at how many prayers that God has answered. That brings us to the kind of prayer in today’s verse: specific praise.
Finally, just as we need to be specific when we complain and when we ask for help, God loves it when we are specific when we praise Him. “God is good all the time.” is kind of okay, but “God You were so good when you healed my wife! It was amazing when you brought our mission team home safely from Africa!” and ” Thank you that my granddaughter is getting baptized this week!” are ways of bringing us right into the throne room of God. God does hear, when we cry, but He is interested most in building a true personal relationship with us. A strong relationship with God is forged when we really talk to him as we would to a friend. We tell Him exactly how we are feeling, what are needs are (daily bread), every sin we are sorry for, every commitment we are ready to make, and then give Him praise because we know that He is listening and we trust that He is in control!
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