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Psalm 41 reads from the New Oxford Annotated Bible as follows: Happy are those who consider the poor, the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble, the Lord protects them and keeps them alive, they are called happy in the land. You do not give them up to the will of their enemies. The Lord sustains them on their sickbed; in their illness you heal all their infirmities. As for me I said, “O Lord, be gracious to me, heal me, for I have sinned against you, My enemies wonder in malice, when I will die, and my name perish, and when they come to me, they utter empty words, while their hearts gather mischief, when they go out, they tell it abroad, All who hate me whisper together about me, they imagine the worst for me, they think that a deadly thing has fastened on me, and I will not rise again from where I lie, even my bosom friend who I trusted, who at my bread, has lifted the heal against me, But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them, by this I know that you are pleased with me, because my enemy has not triumphed over me, But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting, Amen. The overall context of this psalm is the psalmist is on his sickbed, and his enemies are hoping for his demise, and even some of his closest allies in friendship have seemingly turned against him at the this time. There is a song from Woodstock, which says in the lyrics, "Do you believe in love at first sight" in the initial chorus, and finishes with the refrain saying" get by with the little help from my friends" Here, the psalmist isn’t going to get by with a little help with my friends. Verse 1 says, “happy are those who consider the poor." It is easy enough to pass by the so called poor, if you aren’t thinking about them at all, if you aren’t considering them at all in your thinking. And it is easy enough to pass by the poor in prayer as well, after all you might have enough problems of your own, enough wants of your own and if you’re prospering, you have to tend to your own riches. Consideration of the poor may be dropping a coin in their pocket, but it must also extend into the call to prayer. Sometimes, money is equated with success and success is supposed to be the result of hard work. By this logic, I’m not working hard if I’m not involved in some sort of money making drive which tells me I’m working hard. But here, it is important to leave room for consideration for the poor, the downtrodden and this must extend into time taken in prayer for them. That consideration also involves getting to know about their plight. Whether it involves reading a newspaper account or any other means of sourcing who to pray for, there is a duty to find out who the poor actually are and consider them in the various ways they can be considered, and one of those ways is prayer as well as dispersing material means represented by money or goods that are representative of money. This first verse also speaks to the overall call to consideration of others, in whatever way we can be considerate of others and this would be of course inclusive of prayer efforts on their behalf on our part. As the Lord sees this, he rewards those who do this individually by giving them happiness in the land. This verse is not saying that there is overall, complete and widespread happiness in that land. Happy in the land is also something to ponder as we consider what to prayer about. People have individual resources, talents and gifts which may be similar but never exactly the same as others, can they be happy within the land of these individual gifts and talents, within the land of their own relationship with the Lord? The verse which precedes this says the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble. There may be a day of trouble that really does point to them individually per say, but also points to just about everybody, it could be some sort of natural disaster, a disaster brought on by man made devices, or something else that puts everyone in jeopardy. Within this, the Lord delivered them who had considered the poor. Whether poor or rich, if the day of trouble comes, there is not much you can do to buy your way out of the situation; the day of trouble is a day that affects the rich, the poor and anybody and acquired status is no shelter in the day of trouble. The Lord can offer deliverance in this day. This psalm is not pointing to anything else other than the Lord’s deliverance as the help in the day of trouble. The Lord will also get them through illnesses, sustain them and heal them of all their illnesses. Here, whether it is illness or other concerns, there can be a multiplicity of concerns that would relate to prayer requests. So you really don’t want to get into a completely focused prayer request for one healing only or one answer only, when there will be any number or type of things that need to be healed and addressed with the Lord’s presenting help in the prayer relationship. You aren’t going to be able to get yourself positioned so you would have a sole prayer request left on the table, and that would be it. You could preface your prayer saying, this is not my sole concern, but I do want healing of my sore back. This is not to allay the power of the single request, and this can be very powerful in intercessory prayer and you have to start somewhere, but it can also be overwhelming to have the idea you can only have one prayer request and you had better get it right and persistently right. It might be overwhelming to pray for every other thing gone wrong with the world, but it is also overwhelming to the person praying who thinks that this is the prayer and it has to be this prayer and I can only limit my prayers to what is most important and I have to figure that out as well. The importance goes back to verse one and consideration in prayer, and what is consideration is the first order of the day in prayer and that is the major concept to keep in mind rather than getting overwhelmed in trying to manifest the best prayer, the most focused prayer, the most singular prayer. The focus is on prayers that are considerate. Also, to whom this consideration is directed is also important not to exclude the poor and it is probably not best to strictly define poor as those who have less visible money. It could also include people that have poor information about the good news of the gospel for example. The psalm then proceeds to talk about the psalmist himself being on a sickbed, where some have thought it was a very serious illness fastened to him, one that he wasn’t going to throw off so to speak. He enemies of who some where posed as friends and actually came to visit him on his sickbed, whisper against him, gossip among themselves and even broadcast abroad about his seeming ultimate demise. Here some of the things they are doing, would be the opposite of what to do if they had been praying for his healing. Instead of getting together and praying for him, they whispered together against him, instead of imagining the best for him as they prayed for him, they imagine the worst. Instead of uttering words of prayer for him, they utter empty words. The former good friend lifts his heel against him, he can’t even remain neutral in his hostility but falls into the temptations to fully go forward into malicious actions. As he asks the Lord to heal him, he adds confession of his sins to his request. He does get the healing by verse 12, and he mentioned that by this healing, and that the enemies will did not prevail, that he knows the Lord is pleased with him. That concept can be brought into prayer in the here and now, is to ask the Lord, as to what would please him. Here the psalmist is saying that the Lord will let him know whether he is pleased with him, and in this case he has let him know that he is pleased with him. Overall, the concept to bring into issues as they are prayed about is what is going to please the Lord and what displeases the Lord. I want to check what I’m doing against that concept, and as I make decisions I can seek the Lord’s guidance and direction as to what pleases Him both broadly and in the specifics as they arise. If you do get a sense that the Lord is pleased with certain types of prayer request for others, then continue in that direction of prayer. Here the psalmist was able to sense and then finally know the Lord’s pleasure directed to him as an individual. In the final verses, where it says, “ But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen. Here the psalmist is talking about being in the presence of the Lord forever. Not only has the Lord upheld him in this here and now difficulty, he is upholding him forever.
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