The LORD accepts my prayer.

 

Thursday, November 2, 2023


Psalms 5; 6

2 Kings 10:18-36

Matthew 19:16-30


Observance: All Souls


The LORD accepts my prayer.


Lying in bed, faint, the pillow drenched in tears: this asks for a certain type of melody. The sixth Psalm, composed by David, calls for sheminith, a particular set of low-pitched string instruments. It is a prayer set to music, like a solo cello singing out into the night.


Just as the cellist holds their instrument intimately in a tender hug, so David holds his prayer like the precious treasure it is. For, when trouble comes, our brains freeze, our plans dissolve, and our only thought is for the stress of inaction. But there is one thing we all can do in such a state, and it is also the most effective, and that is to pray about it.


The clinician teaches that hope is composed of two parts: options to choose from, and the agency to fulfil them. Hopelessness would be the point at which we lose both.


But for the Christian, even when it seems all hope is lost, when our bones are in agony and our soul faints, when our eyes are weak from sorrow and fail because of all our foes, we still have hope. We still have an option, and the agency to take it. That option is the greatest of all options; indeed, there is nothing else we need. Prayer is the one weapon the Christian has against evil; the one gift from God that surpasses all other gifts, and in which all other gifts find their perfection.


Pull out your low-pitched stringed instrument of prayer. Hold it gently and closely to your soul. Draw the bow across the strings, and let the song of your prayer rise up through the clouds of God’s glory and into His royal chambers. The Lord accepts our prayers.

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