In Psalm 5:1-3 King David gives us a brief look into his thought life of anxiety and prayer.
1 Listen to my words, LORD, consider my lament.
2 Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
3 In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
David needed to know he had God’s attention, particularly as he was sharing his laments (passionate grief). David began each day with prayer, it was the uploading of his deepest thoughts and concerns. He knew that it’s OK to mourn before God, and it was therapeutic to hear himself unloading his inner most thoughts, feelings, pains, disappointments, regrets, doubts, questions, and desires onto the Lord. Prayer allows repeated exposure of our most private thoughts to the Almighty. In prayer you have access to God, and He is listening, He is taking note with the intention of acting upon your prayers. While David was a man of many faults and issues, yet, in his heart of hearts, David was attached to the Lord and did not hesitate to call out for help.
David’s greatest prayer asset was his humility when he called God “my King and my God.” King David understood the distinction between God and himself. God is the ultimate KING of kings who is the GOD of all gods. While King David was a man of earthly authority, yet, before God Almighty, he was vulnerable, inadequate, and fearful. Through prayer, he reached out to God knowing that His Lord listens and provides. Using New Testament language the apostle Paul explains, “my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). When we pray, nothing is left to chance, even the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord (Proverbs 16:33). David understood this.
You see, faith enables thoughts to increasingly become focused on who God IS. Awareness of God’s nature increases stability in our thoughts of Him. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all (1 Chronicles 29:11). God is NOT challenged by world events or political leaders. He oversees all natural events. He controls plagues, and He is unthreatened my human opinions or conspiracies. God never trembles at the squeaky voices of our belligerent world. Therefore, God is our confidence, He is dependably Sovereign in all scenarios!
Even when we make bad choices, prayer gives us access to God’s gracious resources. In these times, David’s words of Psalm 23:4 help, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. The question is, do we truly believe this? Or do we permit worldly voices of error and small god thinking to dominate our thoughts?
>When we pray according to God’s Word and God’s will, we are injecting truth into the flow of our thoughts, and we are speaking biblical absolutes into our souls. Prayer draws from faith, and simultaneously instructs the heart with truth. Prayer is surrendered, open hearted, and vulnerable worship loaded with frailty and imperfection. May we rise above our manmade insecurities, and say with David, that we lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
