The process of prayer
[Psalms 13]
- W. Tozer’s book “Success and the Christian” says, ‘We must respect everyone. Although we cannot respect them if we see their present form, we must respect them by see their potential for change through the renewing power of the blood of the Lamb Jesus and the Holy Spirit’ (Tozer). Without ourselves being changed, we cannot see other people’s potential for change. The reason we think, 'Why doesn’t that person change?', hoping that the other person will change is because we ourselves aren’t changing. Then what must we do for ourselves to be changed? The Bible teaches us to pray. When we pray, we must experience ourselves changing before the circumstances we encounter change. In that regard, we must be different before and after prayer. For example, before prayer, there may have been no peace, full of hatred, and anxiety. But after prayer, we must experience the work of the Spirit in filling our hearts with peace, love, and confidence.
In Psalms 13, we see the psalmist David himself changed before and after the prayer. I want to enjoy the grace God gives us as we meditate on the process of his prayer before, during, and after prayer.
First, before David’s prayer, he prayed “How long?”
Look at Psalms 13:1-2: “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?” The psalmist David cried out to God "How long?" for four times. He had long been spiritually depressed and exhausted by adversity because of his "enemy" (v. 4) so he appealed to God, "How long?" (Park). We can have this groaning as well. Personally, I cried out to God ‘Lord, how long?’ many times before in regard to evangelizing my beloved friends. How about you? Haven’t you ever pray to God “How long?” when you feel the limitation of your patience and of your ability in front of long adversity? As we live our Christian life, sometimes we can have depressed hearts like David. The prophet Elijah in the Old Testament was also depressed under the tree of Rodem and sought to die. Sometimes we are depressed and we don’t know what to do. But in this time, we should make our depressed situation as an opportunity to long for God. We should kneel down more. And we should cry out to God. This is what pastor Park Yoon-sun said: ‘We sometimes experience the light of God's grace as in the daytime, but it is also grace that we can feel spiritually sad at night’ (Park). I agree. When we are stuffy and spiritually sad, we should cry out to God “How long?” in sighing. This is also God’s grace.
The reason why David was stuffy and spiritual sad was because he felt that God forgot him forever and He was hiding His face from him (v. 1). He said, “… I take counsel in my soul” (v. 2) and the word “counsel” means that David was in pains because of this thought and that thought and he was in anxiety (Park). In other words, David's soul was worried about this thought and that thought because of pains, so he was worried all day long. Aren’t our souls like this so many time? Don’t we have so many thoughts because of pains? How often do we feel anxious and are in worry? This is what pastor Park said: ‘If a person suffers from heart pain by faith, he immediately realizes it and receives God’s grace. However, anxiety of leaving the God of grace, that is the unbelief of suffering in mind is harmful.’ We should no longer be anxious of anything in unbelief because it is harmful and unprofitable to us. In order to do so, we must go the place of prayer and humbly kneel down before God and should cry out to Him, “How long?” We should no longer sigh of faith, but sigh of faith.
Second, during David’s prayer, he prayed ‘in fear.’
Look at Psalms 13:3-4: “Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, And my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken.” Here, “the sleep of death” refers to ‘spiritual death from God's grace’ (Park). The deeper the spiritual exhaustion and the deeper the depression in adversity through his enemy, the greater the risk of darkening our eyes if we do not receive God's gracious help and then eventually we may sleep the sleep of death (Park). David had the spiritual anxiety, not a world anxiety, against this spiritual death. He prayed to God because he feared the enemy would win. He thought of his enemy as the enemy of God, so he wanted to overcome it. So David asked God to overcome God's enemies. Also, he cried out to God because he was afraid that he would be shaken because his enemy would win and his enemies would rejoice. In other words, David prayed to God so that he wouldn’t be shaken. In the midst of that, he prayed to God, “Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes” (v. 3). The literal translation of the word “Consider” is “Look at me” (Park). David wanted God to see him more than he wanted to see God when God open his spiritual eyes. After that, he wanted to seer God by Him opening his eyes.
The friend of Pastor Tozer said this: ‘It is better to see the great God when the small number of people gather together than to see the small God with many people gather together.’ This is precious word. We must see and feel the great God in worship. Not only that, we must see and feel the great God in prayer. In doing so, other things (adversity, difficulties, problems, etc.) will appear small in our eyes. However, if we pray to God with unbelieving hearts that keep on making us to see other things than the Lord, the the great God will look small. Therefore, like David, we must experience the great presence of God while asking God in fear. Then change will happen to us after prayer.
Third and last, after David’s prayer, David was changed.
What kinds of change did he have? We can see three changes:
(1) David trusted in God’s lovingkindness.
Look at Psalms 13:5a – “But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; ….” Before prayer, David felt as though God had forgotten him and felt like His hided His face from him. But during his prayer, David experienced God’s lovingkindness. So after prayer, he decided to continue to depend on the loving God.
(2) David rejoiced in God’s salvation.
Look at Psalms 13:5b – “… My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.” Before prayer, David was exhausted and his soul was depressed. But after prayer, he rejoiced on God’s salvation. This is the joy that came through the assurance of salvation. And this was because David experienced the Lord his Savior in his prayer.
(3) David determined to praise God.
Look at Psalms 13:6 – “I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.” The reason why David determined to praise God was because God had dealt bountifully with him. God deals bountifully with us. Like David, when we experience by faith God’s bountiful goodness in our prayer even in adversity, we can praise God like Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:25).
Prayer is a great privilege and a blessing to the children of our God. What a precious grace of God that through continual adversity and hardship and when our soul s are depressed, God enables us to cry out to Him in faith ‘O Lord, how long?’ and just look upon Him. When we experience great God, His lovingkindness, Savior God, God who is worthy to receive our praise, we cannot but be transformed. And we who have been transformed after prayer have no choice but to trust in God’s lovingkindness, to have confidence in the Lord and rejoice because of His bountiful goodness and we will praise Him all the days of our lives.
“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.” (Ps. 150:6)
Wanting to be the man of prayer, James,
James Kim
(Committed to strive for His words and prayers)