- Read Psalm 138 from the ESV.
- Read my Psalm 138 poem from A New Song.
Growing up in the church I often heard that God always answers prayer: sometimes he says “yes,” sometimes “no,” and sometimes he tells us to wait a while. In fact, I heard it the other week in a sermon. While I can’t argue with the inescapable logic of the statement, there’s always been something unsettling about it to me.
Maybe I’m a natural pessimist, but the yes/no/wait model seems as though it’s just a way to cover all the bases in the event we don’t get the answer to our prayers we want. If what we have been praying for does come to pass, then God, of course, wanted us to have it. But if it doesn’t…well, then he’s either saying “no” or “wait a while.”
Another reason this model is unsettling is that it seems as though it assumes that we only pray to God so he can give us something. A new job. A new house. A car that actually works. Cure our cancer. Fix our sprained ankle. Make my boss be a better person. Find me a parking spot during Black Friday. Win the lottery…just this once! And if one of those things works out, we praise God. But if it doesn’t, we assume God is telling us “no” or to “wait” until we are ready for the object of our prayers. Maybe that’s how prayer works. Maybe God wants us to continually seek him for presents and cures. Maybe.
But when reading Psalm 138 I am confronted with something entirely different, but not something entirely new. Notice that David says in 138:3 “On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.” David called to God and immediately received an answer. He wasn’t seeking a present or a cure, he simply asked for endurance. He was in a difficult situation and needed God’s strength to endure: and God provided it that same day.
Psalm 138 indicates that David was surrounded by trouble. We don’t know what that trouble was, but we know it was present in his life – it was part of his day. Yet, in the midst of his trouble, he sings the Lord’s praises, (v 1) he bows to God (v. 2), and he thanks God for his steadfast love and faithfulness.
When I think back to how I responded the last time I was in big trouble I know it wasn’t the same way. I actually asked God to turn back time so I could make a different decision, but I never once thought to praise him. My focus was on myself, my failures, and my present circumstances, not on God, his name, and his steadfast love.
I longed to be removed from my circumstances, but David sought the Lord’s help to endure his circumstances. I’m pretty sure God’s answer to my prayer was a great big resounding “NO.” And there was no “wait a while” involved in my request to have the sun back up the steps a bit. I don’t think getting me out of trouble by turning back time was really God’s plan for me. God’s will at that moment was that I endure my troubles and ask him for the strength of soul to endure my circumstances.
But it doesn’t stop with mere endurance. There is a purpose for enduring difficult times, and that is so God’s work in me will be completed. David says that in the midst of his troubles God preserves him, avenges him, and delivers him (v. 7). But that doesn’t mean God removed David from his difficult circumstances, nor does it mean he will remove us from ours. It means that the Lord will fulfill his plan for David’s life, even in the midst of troubles, because David is God’s work (v. 8), and God never begins a work that he doesn’t finish. Paul understood this as he wrote in Philippians 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
In Matthew 6:9-13 we find that the Lord’s Prayer includes very few things, if any, to which God will say “no” or “wait a while.” Can you imagine God telling us “no” when we request that his “kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?” I can’t. Forgiveness? Leading us away from temptation? Delivering us from the evil one? I can’t imagine God telling us “no” or to wait on any of these things. Certainly, his answers, our paths, out of temptations and evil may not be easy ones, but he does provide them as quickly as we pray for them.
The prayers God answers, on the day we call for him, are those prayers that continue his work in our lives. They are the prayers for patience. For love. For forgiveness. For winning the battle over temptation. In the day we call, he will answer us, and his answer to these prayers will always be “yes.” We may still walk in the midst of trouble. We may still battle temptation. We may still struggle to love. But if we give thanks to him, if we sing his praise, if we humble ourselves, and if we ask for the endurance to persevere he will hear us, he will answer us, and he will not forsake the work of his hands. Now that is a prayer God will always answer.
