Incline Your ear, O LORD, and answer me.
For I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am godly;
Save your servant, who trusts in you —
You are my God.
Just like David, often we enter prayer with a mix of me and you. We call out to God because of our own need, mixed with desperation for him.
I love how this Psalm starts, with David visualizing God as a human, maybe a father in the heavens. He’s asking him to bend down to his level, to take notice of him and to not be silent.
Then he vomits his emotions.
He’s poor — without resources or power. He’s needy — needing resources and power. He’s desperate, feels his very life is in danger. It may have been, as David had many enemies, but he is also fighting an internal enemy, his own feelings and emotions, attacking him and his well-being.
What doesn’t make sense to him is because he doesn’t deserve it. I don’t think I personally could say I am “godly,” but I also know, compared to others who have done more overt acts, I appear “godly.”
And there is the assumption that God blesses the godly and punishes the wicked. Yet, there are times when the godly suffer and the wicked prosper. Those are confusing times when we call out, and desire a listening ear.
David begins his initial ask focusing on “Me and You.” I need help; I am godly. He’s in touch with his need, but by the end of the psalm, his perspective begins to shift: “Save your servant, who trusts in you, you are my God.”
It’s as if it begins to dawn on him, it’s not “Me and You” but “You and then Me.”
What is something you feel is unjust, is threatening you, and you need God to listen? Share and I’ll be praying for you.
