The Condition of the Truly Prayerful Soul

 

The Condition of the Truly Prayerful Soul

Bow down Your ear, O LORD, hear me; For I am poor and needy.

Psalm 86:1

True Christianity breathes prayer.  Not pompous phrases or eloquent memorized passages, but the warm, fervent outpouring of a burdened, pleading soul is the real substance of prayer.  When we approach this ever-merciful, prayer-answering God, we may approach Him in the same spiritual vein in which David did in the beginning of Psalm 86.  He cries, “Bow down Thine ear, O LORD, hear me:  for I am poor and needy.”  This is the cry of a hopeful soul.  He calls unto the God who is not just transcendent, but immanent.

David’s cry is to a God who hears.  He calls upon the God who really does intervene, in the certain hope that He will do just that on the behalf of the petitioner.  He acknowledges that it is Jehovah to whom he is crying.  Is this the God upon whom you, by faith, are calling?  Do you call, without reserve, to the God who gave His son Jesus Christ as a ransom for your soul?  Every need that we have is utterly and completely dependent on a work that only this God is able and most assuredly does do.

David’s is the cry of a devoted and earnest soul.  This LORD upon whom David calls is the One to whom David is utterly devoted.  In earnest, he says, “Hear me.”  How does it stand with you?  Are you so devoted to the Lord that your prayer is that of a humble and hopeful soul?  Are we so in earnest at the throne of grace that we would boldly cry to God, “Hear me?”

David’s is the cry of an impoverished and needy soul.  He does not pray for things which are to him mere incidentals.  Rather, he cries as one who is absolutely destitute unless the Lord should meet his needs.

How do you come to the Throne?  Are you deeply conscious of your absolute destitution apart from the mercy and generosity of God?  Do you come as an abject to the Almighty King?  God help us to pray in the same spirit as this man after God’s Own heart.

Our Great God,

we appeal unto Thee today.

Help us, for we have

none else but Thee.

Where the Bush is Burning

Tomm Tice