Praying with Psalm 131
Posted: Friday, June 23, 2006
by Joseph Jagde
The final verse of this psalm, verse 3 says, "O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and evermore." This is the aim of the psalm, that the person praying get themselves in a position to hope in the Lord and stay in that position both now and into the deep and distant future.
Verse one says," My heart is not proud, my eyes are not haughty, I do not concern myself with great matters, or things to wonderful for me.
This psalm could possibly be misread to the idea that we are going down into a child like state in our thinking or dumbing down. This is not what the theme is. It is referring to a type of prayer where the soul is stilled as a child is stilled in the presence of the parent, as in the verse, "Be still and know that I am God." To do this, you can't really ready yourself or wash yourself over. The words of this psalm are really an invitation to come into prayer with in a sense of really being ready to do so. Indeed a child can have a wholly effective prayer that could change the nations. But as an adult, we tend to expect more and more of ourselves, there is a large amount of striving towards a betterment, towards knowing more and achievement and over achievement can become the mantra of the day. They say, he or she is an over achiever. But this is not what I need to do necessarily to ready myself for prayer. A young child with its mother is not worried about being in the state of readiness to continue forward, to pass the next test, to get the higher bonus, to climb Mt. Everest. Then the issue of pride does comes into play. The psalm does not specify the degree or type of pride, but it talks about things to wonderful for me, and great matters, that I just need to let go on. Here, I have to let go a bit, and forget about what I just can't achieve at least in this very moment, otherwise I will not be able to reach into the stillness so necessary to prayer. One of the things that can be done in prayer is not necessarily complaining about but admitting some things, that for example having admissions that I don't know this, I don't even know exactly what is wrong, I have very little information on this, and so on and even if I do know, I don't have the wherewithal to see my way through or the way out yet. You are citing some of the deficits involved that you are facing with the issue you are praying about. But again, say for example, if someone is praying to the Lord for help for the planet on global warming, it might actually help to know a bit about the subject, and maybe read some good literature on it and better grasp what is involved and so forth which might help in crafting a better prayer on the matter. Or if I am praying for a region of the world, I can read some related articles and from them decipher some of the issues of the land and what could be an entrenched matter of prayer for the people that reside there now and for the all the concerns for the people there. The Lord searches and examines the hearts, and wants us to participate in that as we search with him in the manner of intercessory prayer. But again, I can only go so far in my knowledge and the talent for prayer involves knowledge but also requires an ability to still that knowledge and bring it to the Lord in a moment of prayer. Look at the basketball player taking foul shots, he stills his motion and takes the free shot, he steadies his talent and concentrates in the moment. The golf shot is another example of this.
The psalm says, I do not concern myself with great matters, yet some of the issues of concern in prayer might and do involve great matters. In a sense I am concerning myself with great matters with some intercessory prayers. But realistically, so much is out of reach and out of sight as we are praying and while I'm praying for great matters, this is a degree of release to the Lord's sovereignty as to how that pray is or might effect whom I am praying for. But that is not what we are concentrating on in the prayer as what is out of sight can still be a matter of prayer as we walk by faith and not by sight so we don't have to see some partition of the world to pray for it. In fact, I have never been to China, but I can pray for China in faith without having seen the land.
For example, there is breaking news of a catastrophic earthquake in a region of the world. I know enough about this to realize that it can be a matter of prayer in praying for others in distress as part of the calling of prayer for all the brothers and sisters. At the same time I don't need to know all that there is to know about this. I can broadly guide my prayer over the region of the world by calling upon the name of the Lord for what happened there and identifying the area of the world in my prayer. In the moment, what might have caused this earthquake, the details of what exactly the results of of this earthquake have been right now, is not what I have to concern myself with in order to get the prayer launched. In order to get some rockets or space craft launched into space, we need a fair amount of knowledge about the wonders of space mechanizations and the conditions involved. We can launch a prayer into the heavens however, without having to have a greater and more prominent grasp of what's out there or what's happening here. I have to make due with what I have to get my prayer going, going along with the well known expression," work with what you have got". However, this doesn't mean that I am not using the real gifts of knowledge, interpretation, intelligence and understanding that the Lord has given me in the first place.
It takes some mighty boats to cross oceans, and to launch a boat they often christen the ship with a bottle of wine. But we don't have to christen our prayers with much in order for them to set sail and even if we lack that bottle of wine, all we need is to work with what we have.
Here we don't want to put unrealistic expectations of what we can or need to know before going into prayer. Here, the invitation to prayer is given and the idea is to get to a position of hoping in the Lord, not hoping in extraordinary knowledge, extraordinary abilities to know, and or in having first obtained any higher position in lifestyle status. This can become a false hope, and I need to rest my case in the Lord, after making my best arguments. I might be chagrined in worrying about what I don't have or why I don't have it. I don't have a mansion on the hill, and my pockets are actually quite empty. But I don't have to have this achieved that achieved or any number of other things, before I can pray and potentially pray effectively. All the surrounding issues are in a sense blotted out, screened out and the focus is on the soul itself and a quieting of the soul in the presence of the Lord, but this doesn't mean I don't lack intelligence as to what to pray about and how to go about it. I have my own little prayer patch of land wherever I am, at least in the spiritual sense and maybe in the physical sense. This doesn't need to be a great patch, giant patch or wonderful patch before I can use it and go to the Lord in prayer. This is why a poor person can pray for the richest matters, the peasants can pray for the kings as so on. The weaned child with its mother has it's own little space. When we pray, we can hone our own little space, blotting out a myriad of other concerns. The child's concern is the mothers presence and the souls concern is the presence of the Lord. In the prayer, the space between the soul and the Lord becomes close. But we are not dumbing down, we might be praying for complicated issues that require intellectual depth and knowledge to be brought forth in our prayer. But the state of the soul is that it is calmed down, in the state of receptivity to the relationship and it can now better focus the prayer. The invitation to Be still, and know that I am God, is also to people who do not know as much, do not have as much, and to all of us who at various points are encumbered by any number of distractions, faults and failings, all of which can be weeded out for this moment in this dream like prayer moment that is actually a reality. I don't have to be held hostage to the why, to the how and to what is this before I begin to calm my soul and seek the Lord's presence. The sheer weight of not knowing and having to be so much better could otherwise cripple the prayer process and focusing on this will not in fact lead to the goal which is to put your hope in the Lord. I can be so much better than I have ever been but I don't need to be all this first before I hit the prayer highway and start running with it.
A type of prayer that this might envision is just going into a beautiful stained glassed but nearly empty or empty church and creating that precious space of the soul, and being present to the Lord in quietness.
The invitation to be still and know God, doesn't mean we have to know and be everything else in the world to do this. I don't need to put on every hat to wear my prayer hat.
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