Psalm 116

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me; I was overcome by distress and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “Lord, save me!”
Why is the psalmist praising God? Because God has heard his prayer. The psalmist was in trouble and God in his mercy heard his prayer. He is not praising God in this instance because of his faithfulness to his promises, or because of the wonders that God worked in old times. This psalmist was in trouble, was having personal imminent fears. In his trouble he called upon the name of the Lord. And the Lord heard him and answered his prayer.

I remember when Pat Radcliffe invited me to her home and told me of her life. She told me when she was a little girl and asked God to make her a Christian and he did. She told me when she asked for Christian friends, and he did. She told me of when she prayed to get into medical school, or for faith for her parents, and God answered her. She could not tell me about Jesus and what he had done on the cross without telling me about the prayers he had answered in her life, the troubles he had saved her from, and how he had gone before her in her daily life.

For you, Lord, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

I tend to be much more general in my prayers, praying for mercy, for faithfulness, for wisdom. I tend to be a little afraid that God is not going to answer my specific prayers so to avoid disappointment I avoid risk. Yet, perhaps the only way to learn how to pray like Elijah, or Nehemiah, or Paul, or the Psalmist is to let go of our pride and be a little riskier in our prayers. How can we praise God for his mercy not only in saving our souls from death but for his mercies that are new each morning unless we ask for them.

In order to give thanks with the psalmist we have to be able to learn again to interpret God’s hand not only in scripture but in history and in our own lives. We have lost this. I have heard it said that this is due to WWI. Both sides went in praying to God, sure of his hand on their side, sure of the justice of their cause and they destroyed a generation, ravaged Europe. Seeking to be wise and to learn from experience, churches taught that we should not be too sure about God’s will. The ordeal disturbed our confidence in thinking God’s hand is on our lives in a way that we can notice or name. It’s probably good for that confidence to not be too proud, too selfish, too narcissistic or imaginative. It’s probably not good to have no confidence in God’s intervention in the lives of his people either.

What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

When you pray to God, and he answers your prayers, other people should hear about it. They ought to hear about it at church particularly as we offer God our Thanksgivings. This can be private but it is good for it to encourage and build up the saints. That’s part of the meaning of the silence I leave around prayers of thanksgiving, space for you to offer up specific thanksgivings that you have. Some of that is very ordinary. Work, the roof not falling in on you, the grace to maintain a marriage, recovery after a cold. Some of it may be extraordinary. New people coming to church. The completion of an implausible project. Give thanks to the Lord for his mercy, yes generally, yes in terms of your salvation, but also in terms of his answers to your prayers. And sometimes those answers will be yes. And sometimes those answers will be “my grace is sufficient.” And sometimes those answers will be not yet, or not in that way but I hear you and am preparing your way before you. Ask. Knock. Pray to God in your troubles and praise him in his answers. For God has not redeemed you to be a silent stone but to be his son, to be his daughter. Share in his work and ask for his help in it so that you may praise him and make his mercies known.

I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord.I will fulfill my vows to the Lord  in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord—  in your midst, Jerusalem. Praise the Lord.