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Prayer and psalm 28 by Joseph Jagde
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Prayer and psalm 28 |
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Christianity,Spiritual
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Psalm 28 reads from the King James Bible as follows: Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. [2] Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. [3] Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts. [4] Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert. [5] Because they regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up. [6] Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. [7] The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him. [8] The LORD is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed. [9] Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up for ever. ________________________________________ Here David is asking that the Lord hear his prayer but his plea is also speaking about what he believes can happen if he doesn’t get the prayer’s answered. He sees that things can begin to cave in on him, as it has for others, particularly the wicked, who, specifically are not watching for the works of the Lord and while they are presenting an outer façade of peace to their neighbors, this is only for the purposes of a decoy as their hidden intentions are not for good. This psalm does show how the wicked can collectively be drawn away and it is even that much more of a nightmare to be herded away. As far as prayer, here David is very specifically saying to the Lord, if you don’t help me and hear me, I could be in deep trouble and he is presenting in his plea to the Lord what he thinks can happen if the Lord does not intervene on his behalf. This is something to consider in crafting a prayer request, which is telling the Lord what you think can go wrong if you don’t get the answer you think you need. Lord, if my stocks keep tanking, I’m going to be in the poor house. This is exactly what David is doing and he is the expert and author of many of the psalms yet he is at the personal point in his relationship where if the Lord doesn’t answer him, he sees things really going downhill. David believes that the hand of the Lord is present and visible, and needs to be sought after and contemplated. The psalm says the hand of the Lord is present, but the wicked aren’t paying heed to it. David himself is seeking the hand of the Lord in his pleas and even his elevated status with the Lord does not preclude him from needing to seek and find the hand of the Lord. As the psalm finishes, he finds that he is being helped. We don’t know the time frame of the occurrences of this psalm, whether it was sequential, simultaneous, or in a mixed order to where David maybe found he was being helped, yet later needed to go back to the view of the earlier verses of this psalm, where he is pleading with the Lord. He may and probably did have to revisit that loop of going back to the Lord in prayer for his help in his troubles or all these things could have been happening at the same time where he was pleading and immediately getting helped. In verse 7, we find David extremely happy to have the help and answers present that he sought. His vision of answered prayer became a reality to him. His heart is rejoicing and he speaks of the trust involved in the prayer relationship. One thing to think about as he references song in this verse, is not only is this trust as being a general trust, but it is a trust also which breaks down into the specifics as songs also break down to specific songs and something to think about in prayer is thanking the Lord that you could trust him specifically for this or that. Thank you Lord that I could trust you to help me find this good thing. For example, you could say to a friend, I trust you, or you could also say to the friend I trust you to show up and be there rain or shine or I trust you to help me find this route or trail. You are adding specifics to the trust and this is something you can do in prayer as well and also bring this into the prayer of thanksgiving in that you found you could trust the Lord for something specific and specifically mention trust as you thank the Lord for coming through for you in this particular instance. In the the last verse David is telling how he is praying for the wider world. He is first praying for salvation for many people, then also for blessings, and for their food or necessities, and that they be uplifted or helped forever. This is a great model for intercessory prayer and David brings this type of prayer to the greater world throughout and highlights intercessions for salvation, blessings, necessities and uplifting help forever. This psalm however is not saying that David suddenly started to do this or go into these great intercessions because he had his own personal requests answered or subsequent to getting what he wanted. This psalm is not necessarily sequential; he may and probably did intercede for others on the vast terrain of prayer in the way he is describing in the last verse of this psalm, all along. He wasn’t going to wait for his own personal circumstances to be totally settled before he practiced the prayers of intercession. Even while he had his own deep distresses, he probably kept to the policy of interceding for others vastly and greatly as this psalm suggests. In verse 7 he refers to his own relationship to the Lord and in verses 8 and 9 he intercedes for others and his intercessions for them are brought into the context of the Lord blessing them within a relationship with him, and saving them within a relationship with them. When he says at the beginning of verse 8, that the Lord is their strength, he is referring to the relationship that they do have with the Lord as the frame of his own intercessions for them. In thinking about intercessory prayer, and asking for others, what you might ask for them is something that you would also ask that it be done in the context of the relationship with the Lord. For example, you might ask that the Lord provide a relative with a house, but you would also ask for that blessing to come about for your relative within their own relationship with the Lord. A key for intercessions is that they also refer to the relationship. The Lord is doing this for this person specifically out of a relationship with this person. This psalm is another psalm which plainly refers to salvation and otherwise why would David be asking that they be lifted up forever? David believed that the responsibility of his intercessions were strongly on the intercession for salvation and the forever relationship with the Lord, pointing clearly to another realm of never ending relationship with the Lord.
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