Today’s Reading, Psalms 1-8
Focal Scripture: Psalms 4:3 “Know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for himself; the Lord will hear when I call to him.”
One thing I believe that every person who reads the Psalms can agree upon is how raw and vulnerable most of the writings are by the authors. They explain fear, hope, desire, passion, requests and expectancy. The word that always catches my attention is expectancy in prayer. The writers of the Psalms had a strong belief that when they prayed, God would hear that prayer. They did not doubt or wonder.
Obviously, I am sure there might be a moment in scripture I am not thinking about where someone had a moment of doubt but the majority of times they knew God would hear. They knew God would move in awesome and mighty ways. They knew God was concerned with what concerned them.
In today’s reading we see many emotions. We see that God will deal with sinners. We even see that he will protect his people. In this verse we see that God has set apart the faithful and hears those prayers. He does not turn a deaf ear to those requests.
So what does this mean for believers today? It means when we pray we must have confidence. When we go to God he hears our prayer. When we pour out all of our emotions he knows how we feel and our pain. He knows our elation when he provides a way where there seemed to be no way. He knows our doubts and frustrations.
Our prayer life should be radically transformed because we know God hears us every time. This also means he will also answer us every time. I want to be careful here because it doesn’t mean God will answer us immediately or give us what we prayed to him about. What it does mean is that because he is a good God, he hears our prayer and will answer it exactly when and how he has planned.
Let us be encouraged that our God hears our prayers and cares about us deeply. Our prayers are not in vain.
Tomorrow, I plan on reading Psalms 9-16
