“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an
acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in
your saving faithfulness.” Psalm 69:13,
ESV
I have recently been struck by the way in which King David
describes the nature of his relationship with his God, which of course is the
One true God of the Universe. It is not a relationship that is experienced at a
distance, or a relationship that is shallow, or even a relationship whereby God
is unknowable. It is a very personal, intimate, unique fellowship between
Creator and created one, between Heavenly Father and child of God, between the
Redeemer and the redeemed.
David speaks of the nature of this relationship throughout
the Psalms, and the reader is drawn into it as he/she oversees the soul cries
of this great King who knew God in more than an intellectual sense but also in
an experiential sense. He speaks in the above verse about the steadfast love (hesed) of God and the saving
faithfulness of God who has proven himself in the past, and this is the basis
of his confidence that God will hear and act on his prayer in the present. But
yet he also knows that God’s timing is perfect, and so he concedes that there
is a future “acceptable time” in which God will answer according to his
sovereign timing and purposes.
This is what it means to pray in faith. It means to pray
according to God’s will and timing, to pray in the context of an active
relationship with the Lord, and to pray according to the very nature of God
himself who has proven himself loving and faithful in the deliverance of his
people.
I don’t think there is anything wrong in asking God to
answer our prayers. David did. And based on the kind of God David described, he
knew full well that God would be faithful in doing so.
