He hears your prayer

O Yahweh, do not reprove me in Your anger. Nor discipline me in Your wrath.
Be gracious to me, O Yahweh, for I am pining away; heal me, O Yahweh, for my bones are dismayed.
And my soul is greatly dismayed; but You, O Yahweh–how long?
Return, O Yahweh, rescue my soul; save me because of Your lovingkindness.
For there is no remembrance of You in death; in Sheol who will give You thanks?
I am weary with my sighing; every night I make my bed swim, I flood my couch with my tears.
My eye has wasted away with grief; it has become old because of all my adversaries.
Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for Yahweh has heard the sound of my weeping.
Yahweh has heard my supplication, Yahweh receives my prayer.
All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed; they shall turn back, they will suddenly be ashamed.

Psalm 6

Introduction

What an incredible model prayer for us all! This psalm can easily be divided into two distinct parts with the first seven verses a reflection on David’s sin, and the final three an extraordinary confidence in the faithfulness of God in the face of that.

It can often be difficult to know what to pray, or even harder how to pray it. I know this not only from my own personal experience, but even in watching my own children. There will often be a moment of difficulty where they need prayer, and I will instruct them to seek the Lord. The most often response I hear, though, is “I don’t know how.” This in spite of the fact that we pray together every night, beginning with the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), and followed by a “thank you, sorry, please” where they must first thank the Lord for something they experienced that day, followed by a confession of sin and asking forgiveness, and closed with a supplication on behalf of someone else (eg “please help my sister do well in school tomorrow”).

But even with that practice, when the moment comes where they need to go to God in distress, they turn up blank. I do this too, and I am guessing you might as well. Going to the psalms is a good way of practicing prayer in the way God has taught us.

Confession

This psalm opens with a drawn out agony over David’s own sin. The very first thing he begs of God is that He would not reprimand David in His anger or discipline him in His wrath. Note that David is not asking God to entirely overlook his sin, but only that He deal with David apart from anger and wrath. He knows he has done wrong, but cannot stand the idea of God pouring out wrath against him. Neither should we. It is a terrible thing the Lord endured on the cross for our sake, and that terrible thing has become a source of wondrous joy for we who believe. “There is no remembrance of You in death,” and yet death has been defeated at Calvary. Be weary over your sin, but do not despair because He is our salvation.

Because we believe, we can also go to God in confidence with our confessions. We can ask for His reproach and discipline apart from His anger and wrath because Jesus bore those at Calvary.

Thanksgiving

Over the course of a single prayer, David has gone from agony to grief to triumph. He forcefully sends his enemies away on God’s account, “for Yahweh has heard the sound of my weeping.” For the believer, He hears you in your darkest hour, and He will not abandon you. This is something to rejoice over. The God of this universe who commands every moment in time hears you. No enemy can stand against that, whether it is a person or a circumstance. He is greater than it all, and we who believe have security in Him for all eternity.

May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.