Urgent prayer. Is there any other kind? Urgentprayers.com is one among many websites that offers opportunities to voice prayer concerns. Disclaimer: I am not advocating this website, but here are some samples:
“Please pray for me. I am dealing with a lot of personal issues in my life right now. It seems the more I pray, things only get worse.”
“Jesus, please, deliver my husband … from lust of other women and wrong relations.”
“Please pray for God in intervene and do a mighty thing in Brandon’s life to rid him of social anxiety and depression.”
“Please pray for the improvement of my finances, the cancellation of all my debt, and protection of my home from repossession.”
“My heart is broken. I feel like I can’t bear more pain …. When will God move and perform His miracles.”
“Lord, please forgive me again. I’m sorry for my mistakes and sinful heart. I pray you will take me back again and help me to be stronger than before as I try to do better.” (Urgentprayers.com, accessed July 8, 2013).
We, perhaps, identify with the content of many of these requests. When you read such requests, you hear the desperation of prayer. While these prayers have varied themes, the common thread running through them is urgency. Trouble, distress, and crisis have brought about an urgent need for prayer and for God to act.
Psalm 70 is a gift to the church because it gives us a perspective on prayer that we need. The themes of Psalm 70 are scattered throughout the Psalter (22, 35, 38, 40, 60, 69, 71, etc.). The use of this psalm in part or whole throughout the Psalter in different life situations helps us know that the psalms are meant to be applied to our lives in varied contexts to give voice to our prayers, praise, complaints, and laments.
Psalm 70 and 38 are the only two psalms with the superscription “for the memorial offering” (’azkarah or incense offering). These two psalms are appropriate examples of psalms to be recited with the offering of incense, which symbolized the sweet aroma of prayers rising to God.
Because Psalm 71 has no superscription, some scholars say that Psalms 70 and 71 should be taken together.
Strikingly, Psalm 70 is repeated nearly word for word in Psalm 40:13-17, which is near the end of Book One and may reflect the struggle of the establishment of the Davidic kingdom. Psalm 70 tightens the language a bit to give a greater sense of urgency. 40:13 begins with “be pleased.” 70:1 is literally, “O God, to deliver me! O Lord, to help me. Make haste!”
Whatever the background of the Psalm, it reflects crisis praying. David had plenty of crises in his life, and so do we. Every psalm is not marked by equal urgency in prayer, but the Psalter clearly shows the urgency of prayer. Prayer is more or less urgent but never non-urgent. Leisurely, prayer is a myth.
What does the urgency of Psalm 70 teach us about prayer?
When you read requests from a public site like urgentrequests.com, you see that many of the requests do not flow from relationship but from desperation without relationship. This is sad. It is sad to be in a desperate crisis and not be in relationship with God.
If the bottom falls out of your life today, do you even begin to know who God is? Do you know anything about His character? Or will you at that moment construct a god limited by your ability to conceive him. Will you be like the character, Chuck Noland, in the movie Cast Away who never once called on God but developed a relationship with a volleyball that he named Wilson? He couldn’t even control that relationship and Wilson ultimately washed away in a storm.
Has it occurred to you that God himself is tearing down all the idols and imaginations that you create in your mind? He is doing so to show you His power and glory and draw you into relationship with Him.
In v1b and 5b, David uses the covenant Name of God, the Name through which David was bound to God and God to David in covenant relationship. Because of God’s covenant love for him, David knew that God was committed to His good. Keep in mind David experienced hardship in life and ultimately died, yet He knew that God was acting in loving relationship toward him.
God’s covenant love extends to us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died in our place for our sin enduring the wrath of God that we deserve. He arose for our justification, so that by faith in Christ, God counts our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteous to us. In covenant relationship with Christ, no matter what happens, we know it is not God acting in wrath but in love working for our good. Paul said, God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1Thess 5:9). We must learn the difference between wrath and discipline. Discipline is not always due to sin but is always for our good.
I cannot tell you how encouraging Paul’s Philippian letter has been for me through the years. He wrote from a prison cell. He said, What has happened to me has really have served to advance the gospel…(1:12). He continues, I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance…(1:19). Then he encourages the Philippians to stand firm and not be frightened by their opponents because their opposition is a clear sign of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake…(1:27-29).
The psalms teach us to pray. Some say that God answers prayer with “yes, no, or wait.” The psalms know nothing of this kind of thought. The Psalter asserts, “I call upon you, for you answer me” (86:7). Prayers in the Psalter are not about “no” and “waiting.” Such praying is prayer that flows from knowing God and teaches us about the urgency of prayer.
I love the way the psalmist bursts into the throne room and blurts out his cries for God to hurry and deliver and help him and not delay. If you are going to burst into to a room, you need to really know the person on the other side of the door. This kind of praying takes the formal attire off the ACTS acronym for prayer. While you will find most of the elements of ACTS in this prayer, you won’t see a sequential, poised working through ACTS.
Nothing is wrong with using ACTS as an aid to guide you in praying, but it should not be considered a formula that if employed moves God to act or if ignored dooms your requests. Biblical prayer is not a polished, dignified, stained-glass phenomenon. It’s more like a little kid who can’t see all the ramifications of life who runs to his father begging for him to come outside and play. He knows his dad, and he knows he will do it. That is why he is asking.
The difference is that unlike a little kid that wants to play ball, our circumstances are dire on our best day. We need to take the formal, preaching robe off of the Lord’s Prayer. If there is a robe on it, it is singed with the fires of hell and soaked in the blood of Christ.
When the disciples asked the Lord to teach them to pray, Jesus set before them the most radical, revolutionary, urgent prayer they had ever heard (Lk11:1-13). Jesus said ask the Father for the Holy Spirit because we can’t even begin to pray without the aid and fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Paul unpacked Father for us when he wrote, You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ (Rom 8:15). This is urgent, rush into the throne room prayer. Praying for God’s Kingdom to come has vast implications. Praying for bread today is urgent! Praying about relationships that sin has injured is urgent. Praying against succumbing to temptation and being sifted by the evil one is urgent.
Urgent prayer is not anxious prayer. It battles anxiety. Anxiety is rooted in unbelief. Prayer battles anxious unbelief. I don’t think God sends us trouble to make us pray. We, rather, live in a world of trouble (Job 14:1 ESV). The futility of this world is God’s grace to us to teach us to hope in Him (Rom. 8:20). The most urgent need we have is prayer.
In prayer, the psalmist gained needed perspective on his enemies and the community of faith. His problem was not just about him. Self is a consideration, but self is not the only consideration. None of us live on an island. We don’t make decisions that are of no consequence to others. We need perspective.
Not all enemies are created equal. David asked God to frustrate the evil designs that his enemies had for him. This is a remarkable prayer when you consider that David had every right to put his enemies to death. They way David dealt with his enemies is remarkable. Some he summarily executed. With others, he showed remarkable patience. He was careful to wield the sword as God’s instrument in maintaining justice not simply to save face. David had learned not to put himself in the way of God’s justice, even if he had to wait his entire life.
The same distinction in enemies is seen in Jesus. With some he demonstrated remarkable patience. With the scribes and Pharisees, He was very direct. In fact when He entered Jerusalem the last time, He went straight to the temple to confront his opponents.
David distinguished his enemies in this text as who were seeking his life, delighting in his hurt, and mocking him with ‘Aha, Aha!’ David prays that God would inflict the shame on his enemies that they were seeking to inflict on him. That is just.
These verses do not stand in contradiction to Jesus’ teaching to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you but serve as an example of what Jesus had in mind. How do you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you? You pray that God would frustrate their way, turn them back, and make them feel the shame of their ways. The kindest thing that we can do for people who are doing wrong is pray that they will fail.
I fear that we have added interpretation to what Jesus said about our enemies to the point of distorting His teaching. Jesus’ point is to turn them over to the justice of God. When we entrust them to the justice of God, we are then freed from the need to inflict justice personally. We know that God will uphold His justice and right every wrong.
Do you delight in the hurt of others? Sometime soon after the terrorists attacks on 9/11/2001, I was attending church in a certain city when a sister came up to me and said, “I hope you can see now that you (meaning the USA) have gotten what you deserve.” I am still trying to figure that one out. That is a case like David’s dealing with Shemei. I know our county is not perfect, but I am not sure that we deserved that. I reserved all comment and have committed that to God.
Years ago I was at the Missionary Learning Center talking with a missionary about who I thought would be a mutual friend. The person said, “Yes, I know them. They put their kids in national school and are no longer in the field.” The implication was, “If they had done what we did with our kids they would still be on the field like us.”
There is a certain self-justifying delight in the failure of those by whom we have sought to measure ourselves. We can fall into the trap of feeling threatened by those who have chosen to do things differently than we. We must slay these tendencies. How we do family, my career path, how we do school, what we eat, and what we drink are no measures of spirituality. We cannot build a church and relationships based on these things. The church and our relationships are built on the justifying grace of God in Christ Jesus. We must extend justifying grace out to our brothers and sisters and hope and pray and work for their good.
Why did the psalmist pray for the community when his own situation was so urgent? We can understand why he prayed for his enemies. They were the source of his crisis. He prayed for the community because he understood that the implications of his crisis extended beyond himself to the community of faith. The psalmist wanted the community of faith to rejoice and be glad in God and God to be exalted. There are a couple of applications here.
We may feel that we are the only one going through the problems that we have. You cannot beat the enemy alone. The devil wants to isolate you. This is the way lions hunt. I watched one day as a pride of lions tried to isolate a baby giraffe from the tower. The giraffes maneuvered to keep the babies in the tower and protected. When you try to deal with your problems alone you expose yourself to the enemy and remove yourself from the protection of the body. Foolish pride puts us here. The enemy suggests that your problem can tarnish your reputation, hurt your opportunity for advancement, be personally embarrassing, or cause you to be shunned by the body.
You reason that you don’t want to impact the church with sharing your burden. You not only deny yourself the strength you need but also the body the opportunity to glorify God for preserving you. Paul said, By my imprisonment the brothers are much more bold to speak the Word without fear (Phil. 1:14).
When we pray, we are saying something about ourselves and God. Overall in this psalm, the psalmist is praying for himself. In praying for himself, he is prayerfully reflecting on the implications that God’s answer will have for his enemies and the community of faith.
In praying itself and in praying for himself, the psalmist is making a confession about himself. He is poor and needy. We are beggars in prayer. Without Christ we not only can do nothing, we are nothing. This is the confession of everyone who prays. It is not selfish to pray for yourself. To not pray for yourself is a denial that you are poor and needy.
We are masters of self-deceit. We keep telling ourselves that if we can just get this bill paid, buy a new car, a house, finish a degree, get a promotion, marry this girl or that guy, get the kids raised, we will have all of our problems solved. We are like someone sitting in a burning house talking about how the walls need painted.
In our church covenant, we covenant with each other to pray for ourselves. “We will seek to fellowship with our brothers and sisters, and we will not neglect to pray for one another and ourselves.”
The truth is we need to pray. We need to pray for ourselves and for others, and we need to recruit others to pray for us. At this moment, everyone of us is in need of prayer. Let’s define what I mean by need. We must come to see prayer as something that we cannot live without. Maslow’s theory of human motivation developed a hierarchy of human needs, but he missed the basic human need of prayer. Prayer must come to be seen as basic to our survival.
James said that there is a category of prayer that is selfish and will receive nothing from the Lord (James 4:3-5). Some of the prayers on urgentprayers.com are in that category. Some are praying that God will help them sin. People pray that God will break up homes so they can get a man. They pray for a loan they can’t or don’t intend to pay back. They pray for God to change their grades on tests. A man actually told me one time, “I am writing this check to the church and trusting God to put the money in the bank.”
But if I am praying for myself for my deliverance to magnify the justice of God in my enemies and bring joy to the people of God and bring glory to God, I am right on target. Is it such a strange thought that God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven will right all wrongs, cause us to rejoice and be glad in God, and glorify God?
Don’t make decisions about your life without gathering people around you to counsel and pray with you to help you sort through the issues.
When we pray, we confess that only God can help and deliver. Everybody believes in the sovereignty on God on their knees. It is only the greatness of God that makes prayer hopeful. As we come to the table, we are making the confession that Christ is our only hope. We are poor and needy, and he alone is our help and deliverer.