Psalm 86
A Prayer for God's Continued Mercy
86 1 Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; 3 have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. 4 Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. 5 You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. 6 Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. 7 When I am in distress, I call to you, because you answer me.
8 Among the gods there is none like you, Lord; no deeds can compare with yours. 9 All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord; they will bring glory to your name. 10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. 11 Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. 12 I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. 13 For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead. 14 Arrogant foes are attacking me, O God; ruthless people are trying to kill me- they have no regard for you. 15 But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. 16 Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in behalf of your servant; save me, because I serve you just as my mother did. 17 Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
I started out 2021 preaching an Epiphany series called, "God is speaking", each week looking at passages of Scripture where God spoke in a unique way, and then looking to where God is speaking in our lives today. To do this, we have to listen to God.
This Psalm, while having to do with a word from God, is asking to listen to us.
Psalm 86 is in book 2 of the book of Psalms (remember that the 150 Psalms are divided into 5 "books"), and is the only Psalm in book 2 written by David. And while we call the Book of Psalms the "prayer book of the Bible", this Psalm in particular is a beautiful psalm of prayer and petition.
"Hear me, Lord" the psalm begins. Some translations say, "Incline your ear, O Lord". I have a leather recliner in my living room. It was given to me by the previous pastor who lived in this parsonage. It's probably one of the most comfortable recliners I have ever sat in. But you don't really get the full effect by sitting in it, you need to recline in it. You probably are familiar with what it means to recline.
But in the first verse the psalmist is petitioning God to incline. To incline means to lean in. A few years ago Bishop Richard Looney (who, by the way, gave me teh recliner), led the morning Bible studies at Annual Conference at Lake Junaluska. One morning we took this phrase and talked it about for a good 15 minutes. What does it mean to incline? When we incline we are moving physically closer to the person to whom we are inclining towards. When we incline we are probably making eye contact, more connected to the person we are inclining towards.
And so to begin this prayer, David is asking God to come closer. Literally to incline to me, or come down here.
When my children were younger and they had something important to tell me, they would often want me to "come down here". To be more on thier level, to see the thing as they saw it, and to be sure that I was hearing the important thing they wanted to say.
Prayer is like that. We are asking God to incline towards us, to literally "come down here" because this is really important to me, Lord.
But not only does David ask God to incline, David also asks God to answer. In fact, I believe that David is actually expecting an answer. Do you?
Take a look through the requests of this prayer:
- hear me
- answer me
- guard me
- have mercy on me
- bring joy to me
- hear me
- listen to me
- answer me
- teach me
- give me an undivived heart
- turn to me
- have mercy on me
- save me
- give me a sign
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