The Psalmist’s Prayer Habits - The Book of Psalms
Main idea: We must learn to look to Scripture of a living model for our spiritual life, especially our prayers. When we learn to follow the habits of the Psalmists, we invite God into a deeper walk with us and enrich our experience of his presence.
Outline:
Full transparency - bring to God the entire contents of your heart
Internal awareness - examine your heart in the presence of God
God centered orientation - pray for his glory and his kingdom in all your requests
Application Questions:
1. What are your prayer habits? Have you ever examined them?
2. Are there parts of your life that you don't tell God about because you think they are insignificant?
3. Do you tell God everything? Do you act like he is your Father, who is looking over your shoulder at all that you do, with a desire to guide and lead?
4. Do you see God as the only one who can truly help you see yourself and your blindspots correctly? Do you invite him to do this regularly?
5. Do you think of God's will as something separate or detached from your everyday interests and concerns?
6. Is your greatest goal in life to live with a confidence that you are running fully in line with God's callings for you?
Key Concepts for Discussion:
• Our experience of God's work in our lives
• Prayer habits impact our relationship with God
• Developing a deeper awareness of our hearts tendencies and battles
• Emptying our hearts to God
• Seeing God as the only source of self knowledge and understanding
• Having a correct relationship to God's will
Scripture references:
Ps. 62:8
Ps. 22:14-15
Ps. 55:4
Ps 57:7
Ps. 139:23-24
Ps. 19:12-13
Ps. 42:5
Ps. 6:4-5
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Perhaps one of the biggest ways that we miss out on a deeper spiritual life is in the area of prayer.
One of the typical responses that we have to various issues is: "Just pray about it."
But perhaps one of the things that we don't think about as often is a lot of our prayer habits themselves may be unhealthy.
We pray, but HOW do we pray and WHAT do we pray for?
This is why we often have a disconnect in our knowledge ABOUT God and our daily experience OF God. We say we believe he is Lord over all things. We say we believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts at all times. But our lifestyle often feels distant from him.
Why? One of the answers to that is our practice of prayer. The question is not simply how much we pray, but also HOW we pray.
The beauty of the psalms is that they are a massive opportunity for us to learn from many many different examples of genuine prayer and genuine people working through struggles, that are also God's revealed truth.
Think about that. This is what makes the Psalms unique. I think sometimes we read out Bibles as a sterile display item. But the Psalms especially, remind us that the Bible is written by real people, in the midst of real difficulty and real joy - expressing all that to God.
And at the same time as being deeply human, the Psalms are God's Word - they are the work of the Holy Spirit guiding the true experiences of men, in such a way that the result is real human words, as well as genuine Words from God.
We see this very perspective in Jesus when in Matthew 22:43 he says that David wrote the Psalms under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to listen in on the prayers of Charles Spurgeon, Augustine, Calvin - the apostle Paul? That would be truly instructive and fascinating. Perhaps some of their prayer habits - exactly WHAT they pray about and how they talk to God.
But in the Psalms, we have a whole book collection of prayers of saints, prayers that also inspired by God himself, prayers that are perfect because they are the work of the Holy Spirit through men.
If we understand this we can have a different habit as we read the Psalms throughout our lives - we listen in more carefully on how they pray and we learn to pick up on them more specifically.
Three characteristics of the prayers in the psalms:
1. Full transparency - bring to God the entire contents of your heart
Ps. 62:8 "Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before him. God is our refuge."
One of the most encouraging thing about the Psalms is the depth of transparency of emotions, experiences, worries, needs and joys.
In this verse David is calling the nations to trust in God, but then he gives a very specific expression of that trust. He doesn't just leave it at that. He says, trust in him at all times and pour out your hearts before him.
Notice the call here. Pour out your hearts before him.
This is the very opposite of a set of rules or formulas. Thats one of the problems in prayer is that we get into specific formulas, specific topics or areas of our lives that we talk to God about, but the rest we just never go into.
Here he is inviting us to dump out the full contents of our hearts. Is there stuff that we are or are not allowed to say?
What is the stuff that we tend NOT to say to God?
But does he really care about all the small stuff? Does he really care about the details?
Who told you that he doesn't??
This is one of those areas that we run into a flaw in our theology that we might not realize we have. We say we believe God is sovereign and Lord over every detail of life. But when it comes to the smaller daily details or life or our inner world, we assume he has nothing to do with them.
Notice how the Psalmists consistently bring a total emotional transparency to God.
Ps. 22:14-15
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
Ps. 55:4 "My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me."
Ps 57:7"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!"
I am not saying we sit on the side of the bed and ask God which sock we should put on first. I am talking about bringing him into every aspect of our true concerns and experiences.
If we are honest, we will find that we live a lot of our lives in a functional atheism. We bring God a lot of our main concerns but we don't pray in little moments. But the issue is that most of your life is little moments!
“Kingdom praying and its efficacy is entirely a matter of the innermost heart's being totally open and honest before God. It is a matter of what we are saying with our whole being, moving with resolute intent and clarity of mind into the flow of God's action.” Dallas Willard
What about pouring out to him moments when we feel like our hearts are not right - when we are deeply angry, or frustrated, or impatient...?
The sin grows when it is isolated from his presence. but it is sanctified and transformed when brought to him in honesty.
Think about the difference between your 5 year old child stomping away to their room in anger, or sitting next to you telling you about how angry they are.
When we withdraw from God in our worst moments the darkness grows. But when we learn to freely be his children in his presence, his Fatherly care has a way of both convicting and restoring us in grace.
Think about Jesus in the garden. In his humanity - he did not want to go to the cross. He got to the worst moment and he said, "Please if there is any way to avoid this, let's avoid this."
Was that wrong for Jesus to pray? Of course not.
The problem is that we often feel embarrassed to be our full selves in the presence of God. We think we offend him by bringing our messy frustrations and emotions and weaknesses.
Are you angry? Hurt? Frustrated? Stressed? Joyful? tell him about it. talk to him. be angry in his fatherly presence. Don't think that you need to transform your emotions into a perfect state before you can pray. Don't be embarrassed to be a messy child in the presence of your Father.
God is an infinitely more caring and present Father than we can ever be to our kids. Learn to pour out your hearts to him!
2. Internal awareness - examine your heart in the presence of God
Ps. 139:23-24
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my concerns.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me;
lead me in the everlasting way
Ps. 19:12-13
12 Who perceives his unintentional sins?
Cleanse me from my hidden faults.
13 Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins;
do not let them rule me.
Ps. 42.5
Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.
One of the greatest paradoxes of being human is that we are so often a mystery to ourselves.
We are very bad at diagnosing our own problems. We are very bad at interpreting our own states. We tend to be very blind to our biggest flaws.
This is the danger of sin - it disrupts, not only the knowledge of God and the world - but also knowledge of self.
What is the solution? Notice the psalmists consistently find clarity on self in the presence of God.
They are aware that they do not fully know themselves, and they know it is only God who can clearly show them who they are.
We live in an age of psychology that always promises various kinds of tests to give us clarity on ourselves.
The latest trend in pop culture is psychedelics. In the 60's the hippies were advocating drugs as a means of escape. Today the rhetoric is COMPLETELY different - drugs are a way of deeper knowledge of self.
The psalms consistently show us that we must learn to come to prayerful, Scripture soaked reflection of ourselves in the presence of God.
The difference between this point and the previous one is that in the previous point, we were saying that we need to come to God to pour out our whole heart, to welcome him in to every struggle. The attention is God.
Here we are saying that we need to come to God even to get a proper perspective on self.
There are two forms here that we see.
Firstly we see a prayerful invitation for God to teach us to expose to us our blind spots - for him to expose the since and problems that we are unaware of. We admit that we are our own greatest danger and we admit that we can't even figure ourselves out. We want to live in a lifestyle where one of our prayers is for the Lord to work in us, to help expose our issues and give us that ability to walk in the light.
The second form here is of biblical self examination.
"Oh my soul, why are you so depressed? Hope in God for I will still praise him!"
Here the author is pausing, in his prayerful state, to ask himself some questions - why am I so upset? Why am I so stressed? What truths am I missing in my life?"
And then he is supplying biblical truth into his self reflection - "Hope in God, for I will again praise him..."
He is interrogating his own heart, in the presence of God and his truth, he is trying to get a deeper sense of why he is not living out the truth that he says he believes.
This has been a very helpful habit for me to get into. Personally I am not super good at looking at my struggles. Certain aspects of my life I am constantly analuzing - my productivity and stuff. But when it comes to pressure points or weakness, I really have to stop and ask myself - why am I struggling with this? Whats going on in my heart and life?
There was a season a few years ago when I was much more prone to getting frustrated at home with kids were being loud and disobedient. Just in time for that there was an assignment in seminary that made me take a closer look at one area of my life. For me this was very helpful because it helped me see that I was seeing home life as a retreat and source of comfort in way that was becoming unhealthy. Therefore, when I came home from work I wasn't coming with a mind to serve and give but to rest and receive.
Its been very helpful to include in my prayer and Scripture reading a routine of regularly asking myself what my struggles are and pausing on that to invite God's truth to give me clarity.
Is this going to make us fully aware of all our problems?
No. We will always have blind spots! And this brings us to the first reason why it is so important to cultivate a prayerful self awareness. One of the most powerful realizations we can ever come to is how deeply broken we are - and yet that our heavenly Father is here to guide us through life.
Secondly, it cultivates a deeper sense of our basic sins and struggles. We need to know our battles. We all have our own battles. We need to watch the battle zones and pray for God's healing work. We need to walk carefully in those areas of life.
Thirdly it teaches us that God is the only one who can teach us who we are. The light of his Word and his Spirit - thats the only source of self knowledge. When we cultivate internal awareness in our prayers, when we routinely ask God to show us our hidden faults, when we routinely ask ourselves as we read our Bibles - whats going on in my heart this week? - this teaches us to cement the conviction that the Lord is the only source of understanding for ourselves.
3. God centered orientation - pray for his glory and his kingdom in all your requests
We know that we need to learn to pray according to the will of God, but what does that mean? How does that look?
What is the point of praying for any of our needs, if at the end of the day the only thing we pray for is the will of God? Why not just cut to the chase and pray for his will?
These questions expose the fact that in our hearts, there is often an undetected flaw in our prayer - we view God's kingdom purpose and our own life purposes as two separate things.
So i pray for my stuff, but then at the end i just say, "But not my will by your will be done." And in the chance that my desires intersect with Gods, lucky me! he will answer my prayer.
This exposes the fact that we view God's kingdom purposes as totally separate from the things that we are genuinely interested in and the things that we care about.
When we say that we need to learn to pray according to God's will we are saying that we need to reexamine OUR whole set of goals and objectives for life, and we need to realign our goals with the goals of God's kingdom.
when we see the Psalmist asking God for help, they are not just saying, "your will but done.."
Instead, they see God as actively working his kingdom purposes in and through their lives, in the daily battles and struggles that THEY are facing.
And they are asking for God's help, because they believe that by helping them, he is working his work in the world - he is accomplishing, not just THEIR goals but also HIS goals.
Ps. 6:4-5
4 Turn, Lord! Rescue me;
save me because of your faithful love.
5 For there is no remembrance of you in death;
who can thank you in Sheol?
This kind of prayer is ALL OVER the psalms. "God, please help me! If you don't help me, then I can't glorify YOU in my life!"
Notice there's two elements here.
First of all, we understand that as those who are saved and redeemed by God, he is actively at work in our lives TODAY. He has put you into the life that you live , the family, the friends, the church, the interests that you have - and its all their for a unique way that he is using you and inviting you in following him daily.
The second aspect here is that we are his people, are actively adjusting our daily goals and interests more and more closely to God's kingdom purposes that he has clearly revealed in his Word.
Why do you want your kids to be saved? Your business to grow? Why do you want to get married? why do you want the things that you want? - is it so that God's purposes may be magnified through your life?
One of the biggest misconceptions is that seeking God's will and living for his kingdom is some totally disconnected, far off thing that is completely separate from our real lives and interests today.
“Many people have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even knowledge of. Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about ‘good things’ that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God’s love.” Dallas Willard
God's will is for you to be an agent of his grace and love right where you ARE. Every daily battle we face we are either seeking our own kingdom and comfort, or God's.
When you are parenting your kids and you're praying for God to make them obedient - is it just for your sake and your comfort? or is it for him to be glorified in their lives?
When you are trying to get a work deadline met, are you praying for you to just have less stress and more comfort? Or are you praying for God to make you successful and fruitful so that you can be a witness in the community to his goodness?
When you are for a godly husband or wife - are you praying that for your own sake and comfort? Or are you praying because you are honest with God about your desire for a family and you want to fulfill your God-given calling to glorify God and enjoy him in the beauty of family life?
Praying for God's will is not just about praying for mission and evangelism in other nations or things like that - it is about learning to see your everyday life as a battlefield for his kingdom and glory versus your own.
It teaches you to think about all your needs and your whole lifestyle in a new way. And it teaches you to have a habit of constantly coming to God and asking him to work HIS purposes in your life.
This truly sets you free from the anxiety or stress of expecting certain results. But it also gives you boldness to keep going - to pray for guidance, to do your best and keep working.
This is what gives the Psalmist the boldness to argue with God
"Why would you let me die? How will I praise you when I am dead??"
This exactly what Jesus did in the garden.
"Father, if there is any other way - pass this cup from me. Yet, not my will but yours be done."
He is actively submitting his desires in the moment to the bigger will of the Father.
Only because he did that, there is such a thing as resurrection. The beauty of his victory was the product of his self conscious submission to give himself for the purposes of the Father.
This is what we are called to do everyday. Do you want to see resurrection power in your life? Do you want to see God working through difficult situations and changing your life and the lives of people around you in beautiful ways that you never thought possible?
Learn to align your hearts desires and interests with his. Make his passions your passions. Make his values your values. Make his dreams your dreams.
Application:
1. What are your prayer habits? Have you ever examined them?
2. Are there parts of your life that you don't tell God about because you think they are insignificant?
3. Do you tell God everything? Do you act like he is your Father, who is looking over your shoulder at all that you do, with a desire to guide and lead?
4. Do you see God as the only one who can truly help you see yourself and your blindspots correctly? Do you invite him to do this regularly?
5. Do you think of God's will as something separate or detached from your everyday interests and concerns?
6. Is your greatest goal in life to live with a confidence that you are running fully in line with God's callings for you?
When we learn to adjust our prayer habits (not just do this once) to what we see in Scripture, we will also experience a thicker sense of God's guiding presence and lordship in our lives.