Meditations from Psalm 5

1 Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my groaning.
2 Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God,
For to You I pray.
3 In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice;
In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.

The Psalmist entreats God in Psalm 5 to hear his prayer. This is one of my favorite passages about prayer in the Bible because the language is so vivid and the heart of David can be felt. There’s much to learn about how to pray in these words.

1. David shows great reverence for God. In just three short verses, he recognizes God’s lordship, kingship, and deity. He understands lucidly that God is in control of his life and he humbly submits to God’s rule. He does not blame God for his problems. He simply understands that God is greater than his problems and that it would be consistent with the character of God to deliver him from those who oppress him.

2. David’s prayer is in the morning. This is such a difficult thing for me personally. Each morning when I arrive at the office, my first inclination is not to open my Bible and pray. There is always so much to get done at the office that my first thought is usually to check my email or go run errands. Twice in the opening verses, David mentions that his prayer would be lifted up in the morning. David could not help but make it the first thing each day because of his incredible need. He is praying for protection from the wicked who are his oppressors, and he knows that without God’s help he would have no hope for salvation. This leads to the next point.

3. David prays because he needs to pray. There is great urgency in his prayer. The phrase “my words” in vs. 1 is emphatic. “Give ear to my words,” “consider my groaning,” “heed the sound of my cry for help.” He makes three appeals to God in quick succession accentuating his dire need. There is a clear sense of urgency in his prayer, and this is a rebuke on my life that I do not regularly sense that same urgency for prayer each morning.

4. David thinks about what he prays. Literally, the sense in the Hebrew is that in the morning he would arrange his words before God. He doesn’t just throw a bunch of words together and haphazardly present them to God. He carefully thinks through the words and arranges them so as to make his best presentation. Too often, Christians fall into the error of thinking that spontaneity in prayer breeds sincerity. The truth is that spontaneity oftentimes turns our prayers into a thoughtless, unorganized clutter of words. Our prayers are too often shallow, unspecific, self-centered, and overly casual. David thinks through his prayers first before addressing the Lord offering quality prayers and still his sincerity is intact.

It’s amazing how much there is to glean about prayer in three short verses. This isn’t even all that is contained in this beautiful prayer passage! It is humbling to think how much more there is to learn…even more humbling to consider how much more there is to apply.