Psalm 143 (ESV), which is the passage of Scripture that we are reading today, is another wonderful example of a Psalm that can help teach us how to pray. If we read through the Psalm and pray while reading it, it can help guide our thoughts and help lead our prayers in a way we might not have prayed otherwise. Let’s look at this prayer of David, going section by section.
The first four verses say:
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!
2 Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.
3 For the enemy has pursued my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.
4 Therefore my spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.
Before David makes any appeals to God for help with any trouble he is facing, he first appeals to God’s mercy for forgiveness. He is not specifically asking for God to forgive him for a named offense in this section, but he is expressing a heart that is sorrowful and repentant. He says his heart is appalled, and he knows that no one, himself included, is righteous before God. He says, “no one living is righteous before you.” By saying that, he is expressing a heart that is humble, for he knows he desperately needs the Lord’s mercy.
Paul echoes this statement in Romans 3:23 when he writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
David also says the enemy has pursued his soul; the enemy has crushed him. We don’t know when this Psalm was written or what was specifically causing David to feel crushed in spirit, but we know he suffered many trials. Some brought about by his own sinful decisions, and others brought about through no fault of his own.
Then verse 5 says:
5 I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
I don’t think David is thinking back to when he was young, so much as he is recalling to mind all the ways the Lord has helped him in the past. Maybe, though, he is thinking about when he was a young boy, watching over his father’s sheep; thinking back to when the biggest problem he faced was fighting off a lion. Compared to the other trials he faced, a lion would now seem pretty easy to him, I imagine. But no matter which days of old he’s referencing, the focus is not on what David was doing in the past. The focus is on what God has done. He’s remembering what God did for him, and perhaps, remembering what he knows God has done for others in the past as well.
As we pray this Psalm, or as we pray any prayer, it is good to stop and be reminded of what God has done in the past. If we can remember all the times God has been faithful in the past, it will help us trust in God’s faithfulness today. We can think about not only what God has done for us, but what God has done for others. David writes that he remembers, meditates, and ponders. Are those all synonyms? I think they each mean something a little different from one another.
To remember is to recall to mind. The word in Hebrew is zakar, and it simply means to bring to mind.
To meditate is the Hebrew word hagah, and it means, “to moan, growl, utter, speak, muse” according to Strong’s Concordance.
To ponder is the Hebrew word siach, and it means, “to muse, complain, talk (of).” Strong’s also says it means, “to ponder, i.e. (by implication) converse (with oneself, and hence, aloud).”
That tells me that not only did David remember what God had done in the past, but he really mulled God’s past actions over in his mind. He really thought about what God had done. He didn’t just think, ‘I remember when God helped me kill Goliath.’ No, he really thought about it. If that was one of the events he was remembering, then he would have thought about the details of that day; how everyone was too afraid to meet Goliath in the field, how his brothers didn’t want him there, how Saul tried to give him armor to wear, how he picked up five smooth stones. Maybe he thought about how afraid he was, but also about how much peace he had that God would help him. Maybe he thought about how that stone went flying and hit Goliath right between the eyes and the giant, like a chopped tree, fell on his face to the ground.
Whatever David was remembering, he didn’t just remember it. He mediated on it. He pondered it. He considered all the angles of it. When we are facing trouble, we would be wise to do the same. Not only should we remember what God has done for us in the past, but we should stop and really think about the details of how God helped us.
One way to help remember the specifics of what God has done is to keep a journal. Whenever I am going through a difficult time, I like to write my prayers down in a prayer journal. That way, when God answers my prayers and helps me, then I have a record of His help. Then, in the future, I can go back and read about the details. Another thing I like to do is tell my children about the times God has helped me. I tell them the stories and give them the details, for not only does it keep the stories alive in my mind, but then they get to hear how God has helped me and it builds faith in their hearts.
Back to the Psalm, verses 6-8 say:
6 I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
7 Answer me quickly, O Lord!
My spirit fails!
Hide not your face from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the pit.
8 Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
David is stating his faith in God’s goodness. He believes the Lord loves him and will come through for him. He says, “let me hear in the morning,” or as other translations say, “cause me to hear in the morning.” Let me hear almost sounds like it’s a command. But I think David is simply expressing faith that God will answer him, and he’s asking God to make sure that he hears Him. He doesn’t want to miss out on hearing Him. I think that is a great prayer to pray, and one I pray often. It’s a simple prayer that says, “Cause me to hear You when You speak to me, Lord.”
Hearing from the Lord doesn’t mean that we hear an audible voice, though. Let me give you an example of how the Lord speaks to us sometimes. The other day, I was praying to the Lord to help me. I wanted Him to heal me of something, and as I was asking Him to heal me, I was reminded of the Bible verse in Matthew 7:9-11. Jesus says in His Sermon on the Mount, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” That verse popped into my head as I was praying and so I “reminded” the Lord of what He said, and I asked Him to please give me the “bread” I was asking for (which was healing), for I know He is my good Father and I am His child. I think the Lord spoke that Bible verse into my mind. It was really He who was reminding me of His faithfulness. He heard my desperate prayer, and He healed me. I think that is one way the Lord speaks to us: He brings Bible verses to our minds. That is why we should all pray that the Lord would cause us to hear Him when He speaks to us.
The rest of verse 8 says, “Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” As we read that verse, if we have a need for the Lord to give us direction or help us make a decision, we can pray this prayer specifically. In my own life, I have a decision to make about something, and so as I read this verse, I personalize it. I pray “Lord, help me to know the way I should go. Please make it clear to me. I lift up my soul to You; I give You myself. Please guide me.” That is one of the great things about reading the Psalms. As we read them, we can pray them at the same time, personalizing them to our situations.
Then David says in verse 9:
9 Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord!
I have fled to you for refuge.
This is a plea for protection. Again, as we read it, we should feel empowered to pray for the same thing. We can pray, “Lord, deliver me from enemies. I look to You, Lord, to keep me safe.”
Verse 10 goes along with verse 9, it says:
10 Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me
on level ground!
Part of keeping us safe requires cooperation on our part, doesn’t it? If we engage in dangerous behavior, we may end up in harmful situations. Especially if we are disobeying God and choosing sin. That is why we should pray that the Lord will teach us to do His will, and ask Him to lead us, so then we can pray with faith for Him to deliver us from evil. I don’t know if we can ask the Lord to protect us from harm when we are willfully disobeying Him. I mean, of course, you can ask Him to protect you, but I don’t know that we can expect Him to hear us when we are being disobedient. If we are sticking our hand into the fire on purpose, we are going to get burned. Maybe that is why David follows his plea for deliverance with a plea for God to help him to obey. He says, “Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground.” What does level ground mean? The Hebrew is more accurately translated as the KJV says, “Lead me into a land of uprightness.” God’s will is the “land of uprightness” or “level ground.”
Then the last two verses say:
11 For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!
12 And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies,
and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul,
for I am your servant.
This is a continuation of that same request to be led into the land of uprightness. And then David adds a request that his enemies would be cut off from harming him. Again, David’s posture is humble: he is God’s servant, bent to do God’s will. If we want God to protect us and keep us from the enemy’s plans to harm us, we should have that same posture of servanthood as well.
In Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, he explains that verse 12 could also read, “And destroy all them that afflict my soul - Cut them off; render them powerless to do mischief.” We may ask God for the same thing. We can pray, ‘Yes, Lord, cut off the devil’s plans to harm us. Render the devil powerless to do us mischief.’ Do you see how praying this Psalm leads us to pray in ways we might not have otherwise thought to pray?
This is the last day of this year, and as we head into the new year, I think Psalm 143 is a wonderful Psalm to pray. We can condense it down to these lines for a daily prayer to pray:
Hear my prayer, O Lord;
I confess that I am a sinner and I ask for Your faithful mercy.
I know that evil has pursued me and wants to crush me. Please protect me and don’t let me give in to temptation.
I remember Your faithfulness to me in the past. I remember how You have always helped me. I need You to help me again. I stretch out to You; please fill me with Your presence. Please remind me of Your love for me.
Please tell me the way I should go today. Teach me to follow Your will today. Please keep me safe from evil. Protect me from harm. Lead me out of the reach of evil; help me stay on Your narrow path.
Please preserve my health and my life, and keep me out of trouble. Please cut off the plans of the enemy. Yes, Lord, cut off the devil’s plans to harm me. Render the devil powerless to do me mischief.
I want to rest in Your love for me. Help me to be Your servant all throughout this day. In Your name I pray, Amen.
I know that different prayers have been popular over the years, and people sometimes think that some prayers are more powerful than others. For a while, there was a movement where people were obsessed with the prayer of Jabez. They made t-shirts and commercialized it. But if you pray a prayer thinking it will be a magic formula, then that is the wrong attitude to have. And especially, non-believers thinking that reciting the rosary or some other rote prayer is going to grant them special favors from God is misguided at best. But other written prayers that we follow can be very helpful. The prayer of Jabez is actually a great prayer to pray. 1 Chronicles 4:10 says, “Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!’ And God granted what he asked.”
Also, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives the people a specific prayer to pray; we call it the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew 6:9-13 Jesus says, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
It is good to write out a prayer, similar to Jabez’s prayer, the Lord’s prayer, or a shortened version of Psalm 143 as I did, or any prayer you want, for that matter. The point is not which prayer, but that you pray. The good reason to follow a prayer that we find in the Bible is then we know we are praying according to God’s will.
What if you prayed this prayer of Psalm 143, or one like it, each day of 2024? Would your focus each day change? Let us commit this new year to make prayer a focus. I am convinced that if we better understood the importance of prayer, we would be hard-pressed to do anything other than pray. So, let us pray together, following David’s example.
Pray:
Hear our prayer, O Lord;
We confess that we are sinners, and we ask for Your faithful mercy.
We know that evil has pursued us and wants to crush us. Please protect us and don’t let us give in to temptation.
We remember Your faithfulness to us in the past. We remember how You have always helped us. We need You to help us again. We stretch out to You; please fill us with Your presence. Please remind us of Your love for us.
Please tell us the way we should go. Teach us to follow Your will each day. Please keep us safe from evil. Protect us from harm. Lead us out of the reach of evil; help us stay on Your narrow path.
Please preserve our health and lives, and keep us out of trouble. Please cut off the plans of the enemy. Yes, Lord, cut off the devil’s plans to harm us. Render the devil powerless to do us mischief.
We want to rest in Your love. Help us to be Your servants all throughout each day. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
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