Scripture: Psalm
40:1-11
Teaching
Life
Prayer
Teaching
Life
Prayer
Some believe that this is one of David’s earlier psalms
because v. 6 is similar to the message that Samuel delivered to King Saul in 1
Samuel 15:22. In any case, this psalm is a prayer that speaks of God’s
deliverance and mighty deeds and the impact God has had on the psalmist’s life
in the forms of salvation, faith, and a desire to declare what God has done. In
the rest of the psalm (v. 12 and following) we also see God’s past deliverance
as the source of hope for future salvation and God’s previous deeds as the
reason the psalmist feels he can approach God with his requests. The psalm
functions in such a way that we hear Christ himself praying and teaching us to
pray with boldness and confidence, moving us, too, to share the hope we have in
God’s salvation.
The Psalter has been called the prayer book of the church. It
is in these psalms that we learn to pray, to speak to God. As Bonhoeffer
writes, “Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It
means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is
full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus
Christ.”[1]
In this particular reading we learn that prayer entails
waiting, certainty of salvation, praise, and declaration of what God has done,
along with placing our requests before God. Perhaps if we feel our prayers are
not as we would like them to be it is because we have focused more on the
requests than the larger conversation with God.
Such prayer, as it is depicted in this psalm, bleeds over
into our day-to-day lives. It says, “I have not hidden your deliverance within
my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not
concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the congregation.” Our
faith is not merely a personal matter to be lived out in the comfort of our
minds. It impacts our speech, our actions, and our interactions as we share the
hope that we have in Christ.
Reading the psalms can be both challenging and comforting.
Many people sense the comfort in these words, but the challenge is in praying
such bold words for ourselves knowing that we are sinners and have no right to
be as bold as the psalm leads us to be. As we read and pray the psalms, it
might be helpful to look at them as more than our own individual words, but see
them prayers that we pray together; with one another and for one another. Not
only that, but we remember that we pray in Jesus’ name, that is, under his
authority and from the salvation he won for us when he shed his blood. So in a
sense when we pray the psalms we pray with Jesus – and, more importantly, he prays
with and for us.
Use Psalm 40:1-11 as
your prayer today.
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prayerbook of the Bible
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