Psalms 3 – 5
The Psalm’s are great for thinking about when you just need to “reflect” on the Lord. These three Psalms’ are grouped in David asking for God to save him (3), answer him (4) and lead him (5). Using these as a format covers your prayer each day, except I suggest adding in prayers of forgiveness and prayers for others. Verse 7 starts off very simple:
Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God!
Although David is asking for help and salvation he recognizes that it is up to the Lord ending with:
Salvation belongs to the Lord, your blessings be on our people!
I can’t help but notice how David prays for help, but realizes it’s not just about him, but others. I know he can be held up and a great example of success, but also as a great example of failure. This Psalm was written when David was in hiding from his son, due to the family meltdown after the affair with Bathsheba. You can see how this “divide” or hiccup in David’s life changed it forever and through generations. So you see he eventually turns back to God and try to get blessing back.
One of the most common requests I seem to have is asking God for answers. I am constantly looking for an easy way to figure out how to solve problems or messes I make and wish many times God will take a more interactive role in my life. At least spell out clearly the right path and answer. Verse 1 in chapter 4 starts off right:
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
How I wish it was that simple many times, that God would answer my prayers clearly. As I reflect on my life I believe God has done this and I just choose to ignore it. Often we ignore a clear message from God, not because we can see it but we choose not to accept the answer. Money is my major flaw, I spent with “faith” God would “bail me out!” I can say he has quite often, but one major thing we learned raising children, that if you do that too often they no longer rely on themselves. So this more recent collapse I have had to live under God’s principles of 10/10/80 and distort it so the debt was being paid aggressively to a 10/4/36/50 and as we come out our ability to live in abundance is more throttled than before.
Chapter 5 verse 8 starts with:
Lead me O Lord, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.
The final request is actually quite simple; we have millennium’s worth of examples that have been recorded to follow. We don’t need a pillar of smoke and fire to lead us. We don’t need a booming voice from the heavens to answer our prayers. No we have all that in one book, the Bible! Think about how easy it is to get answers to our desires, it’s in this book. Sure they don’t have answers to how to deal with clicking internet porn, but the root cause is talked about often. Our hearts and root desires have not changed, only how we get there and how quickly we get in over our heads.
So read the Psalms’ with a desire to know God and see the struggle of others. You will quickly understand that although the writings are thousands of years old, they can easily apply to our world today. Technology has only become a tool to “burry” us quicker. At the same time, it can spread the Gospel of Jesus more quickly, so click and blog wisely!