Prayer with Psalm 77

In verse 2 it says, " When I was distressed, I sought the Lord, at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted."

Here he is saying he will pursue the Lord till no end until he gets his answer. He refuses to let go of his request or requests, which are personal in nature as he wrestles with the issues in the deep of the night.

He is doubly distressed because not only does he have these very real personal problems, but he has seemingly lost the solace of being able to go to the Lord in prayer and get a response. His prayer relationship seems to have faltered, yet he can't let go and relinquish his prayer life as this has been his approach to things for years on end. It only adds to his distress that he has been praying to God for so long, that instead of the relationship deepening, it seems to have faded. Instead of feeling uplifted and conversant with God, as one might expect from so many years of prayer, he now feels neglected, out of favor, forgotten, and feeling that God has broken promises to him, and is maybe quite angry with him. After admitting all this in the earlier verses of the psalm, in verse 10 he says" To this I will appeal, to the years of the right hand of the Most High."

First he is going to look again at what his relationship with the Lord had been, as he does have a personal history with the Lord.

He is shifting his strategy. His prayer requests seemed to have toppled over on him, and his current constant focus on his own troubles in his prayers have gotten him off line in his thinking on God's prowess. In the last 3 verses of the psalm, he talks about God, his prowess, and some of the great things that God has obviously done. The prayer relationship is now turning to where it is not just about him but about God as well.

Three major themes he is mentioning, thru verses 11 thru 13 in his now new approach to prayer as he changes his appeal to the Lord is to meditate, remember, and look for God ways.

All three have a method to them of slowing down a bit and more fully contemplating the Lord as who he is praying to and what his actions have been in the past both for himself and for others and also more fully realizing that God has his ways that must also be searched.

These tools he has always had as his disposal, he apparently has had the ability to comtemplate and remember God's works, and the ability to meditate on them, and the ability to ponder His ways, but in his never give up approach to prayer he has neglected to use some of the tools available to him within the context of his appeals to the Lord. These tools will help him close the gap, that has opened in his prayer life.

Think about for example intercessory prayer for someone else, we might remember that person, meditate on them a bit, and consider what their ways are. These are part of the tools we use as we go into intercessory prayer.

He can derive off some of the things he has seen, that God's mighty hand is close by and God's sheer presence is seen by what is happening.

In verse 19 it says" Your path led through the sea, your way through mighty waters, though your footprints where not seen."

Here he is savy enough and discerning enough that even though not everything is seen, it is enough to see the abject switch in the mighty waters to discern God's hand in the matter. What comes to mind is how much do we have to see to begin to know His presence.

He also mentions the awesomeness of lightning and storms. He doesn't need a signature in the sky saying God to realize his hand in this.

In is interesting that I read this psalm right after witnessing a superlative storm in Glacier National Park in Montana just this past Tuesday. The lightning and thunder was nothing short of incredible, it was like the whole region was lighting up every few seconds combined with tremendous thunder and there was mixed in with this fierce hail. I was talking the next day to Larry, who has been here for eight consecutive summers, and he said he has never seen a storm like this. So it was appropriate to open to this psalm.

In verse 19 it says" You are the God who performs miracles, you display your powers among the peoples."

This storm was an example of this.

This psalm can be a possible model for a shift in prayer strategy that doesn't have to be forever, but the ideas here are instead of just demanding an answer based on a long time prayer relationship, or even a new one, here is a more generalized appeal to God's greatness, while also specifying actual manifestations of that greatness that both he and others have experienced.

Some of these great events were in the past and there is an appeal to rememberence. Some of the great events are happening before his very eyes right now, and an appeal can be made to the greatness that he is seeing now. For the moment, he does now let go of his anguish, dissappointments and fear that he is personally out of favor with God and his goodness for him, and seeks to meet with God in another way, by appealing to all the great things he has done and can do. God according to this psalm does display his power and he wants us to relate to his prowess.

A simple analogy might be two friends having a catch with the football, one of the friends has a great arm which he displays with his awesome downfield passes. He is great with throwing a football and displays this. The other friends job is to go deep and get under the great throw for the catch. They are on the same playing field and the friend making the catch is properly attuned to the great throw and adjusts for it.

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