Psalm 17: Purification of Prayer

First of all, according to the calendar, Ray was supposed to do Psalm 16, but he did psalm 17. Now because I am a merciful guy, I'm not going to send out a funny email about that, however I am going to post the novel I wrote about psalm 17. So I guess you all get a double dose of this psalm.

Psalm 17:1 "Here O Lord my righteous plea..."
Psalm 17:3 "Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin."
Psalm 17:6 "I call on you, O God, for you will answer me..."

The thing that stood out to me about David's prayer in psalm 17 is his pure motive for his request to God and his confidence in God's answer. Notice in verse 1 that he describes his plea as "righteous". Also notice in verse 6 his confidence that God will answer his plea. I think the fact that David has a righteous motive for his prayer is a big reason why he has confidence that God will answer him. This relates to 1 John 3:21-22 "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him."

When you come across something in God's Word that you don't understand or a question about how God works in the world, don't just dismiss it! People often avoid asking the difficult questions and would rather just not think about them. However, if you want to grow then you have to ask the difficult questions that you don't understand and you must search for the answers. You may be confused at first, but continue to seek God for understanding.

The reason I brought that up about searching for the answers to the questions that you don't understand is because this psalm brings to mind a difficult question about God answering prayers. The way that God works through prayer and how in his wisdom may grant some requests and not others is very mysterious. There are many verses in the Bible that say something along the lines of Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Now first off I want to note that just pulling a single verse out of the Bible completely out of context is very dangerous, especially with a verse like that. We know that many people have prayed for things and not received what they asked and clearly that promise of a guaranteed answer to prayer has restrictions if placed in context. I know that God's Word is true and therefore there are things to pray for that God will guarantee to grant your request. The difficult question is how to have prayers to God that you can have complete confidence that he will answer you and grant your request. For more clarification, lets look at John 15:7 "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." Notice the condition for receiving whatever you ask is that you remain in Christ and his words remain in you. As Christians we have the written Word of God and we also have the Holy Spirit inside of us. I know that any promises that God has made to us in his Word, we can pray for that and be certain that we will receive it if we do not doubt.

But I also know that there is another amazing way that God answers prayers that are made through the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God is the will of God. If a person prays and the Holy Spirit is truly speaking through them, then that means that the words that are coming out of their mouth may very well be the very things that God intends to accomplish. God places desires on our hearts of things to pray for and the Holy Spirit moves us to pray for these things. God then hears the prayers made through the Spirit and answers the prayer. Everyone who heard the prayer request and then witnessed God's answer is filled with praise for God. This is perhaps how God Sovereignly works through the prayers of his people for his own glory.

Now we must have humility in our prayers because we do not know what God plans to do in any given situation except that which he has revealed to us. That is why we must pray for his will to be done and for him to be glorified. Only God knows in what way he can receive the most glory. Don't try to tell God what is best for him to do, instead let him tell you what is best for you to do.

Also look at James 4:3 "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your own pleasures." I wonder how many times our prayers go unanswered because we have wrong motives? The true motive behind our requests should be for the glory of God. That is why when Jesus prayed he said "Yet not as I will, but as you will." If we pray for God's will to be done, then we know that request will be granted because God's will is always done. Now when I refer to his will, I am referring to the perfect plan that he is carrying out.

Sorry if all this has been a little confusing, but I don't even fully understand it all myself...of course it doesn't help that its after 2 in the morning right now. The point I think you should take from all this is that we must purify the motives of our prayers. We must stop praying for our own sinful pleasures and instead pray for things that are pleasing to God. A great truth in this is that if you let the Spirit rule in your life then the things that are pleasing to God will also be pleasing to you.

Bryan