Psalm 17 - The apple of your eye

You cannot read the Psalms without grasping the urgency that keeps on coming from within them time and time again. Sometimes when we are in the midst of a crisis we talk of needing ‘time to ourselves’, or we try to ‘get our head cleared.’ At other times we seek to comfort and strength of friends or family and of course these are all good things.

However time and again in these Psalms David doesn’t seek to clear his mind, neither does he reach out to other people. Time and again we find David reaching out, crying out, to the LORD.

I remember a number of years ago coming across a poster produced by Tearfund. The poster read: ‘Prayer is not an art, it is a cry.’ If you’re familiar with the work of Tearfund you can imagine the background to that poster, a situation perhaps of famine, war or disease. In comfortable times prayer is something Christians do, you maybe imagine people bowing their heads quietly in church, praying at home, or group to a prayer gathering.

We don’t get to choose the times we live in and patterns formed in ‘good’ times lay the foundations for who are and how we respond when times are hard.

But when things are hard and frightening it’s as if God leads to a different place, a deeper place, in prayer. Prayer truly becomes a cry from the heart. Prayer involves repentance (asking God to search our hearts – vs 3). Prayer cries out for saving with many things raging around us (vs 7). Prayer is honest in naming the threats we face and things that we fear (vs 11-12). At the bottom of it all in these prayers of David we find a confidence. David’s greatest hope is in God Himself. David wants, needs, more of God. He prays believing (vs 15) that God will hear his cry.

Prayer: Lord please listen as I cry out to you. You know my heart. Look deeply into my heart and take away all that grieve you. Lord I am looking to you for rescue. Hide me in the shadow of your wings Protect me from everything and from everyone who would seek to harm me. Give me more of you Lord Jesus, and that will be enough for me.