September 1, 2023

Psalm 18: 1 I love you, O Lord, my strength. (NIV)

God could answer many of our prayers a hundred times over, and we would never know because they are not specific enough for us to see the results.*

For all that we believe in praying, we don’t always do it well. For example, we’ve all been warned about the danger of praying for patience – the only path to patience is through trials, so think carefully before you decide to ask for it. Maybe our prayer for patience would be more effective if we prayed specifically: Please give me patience . . . with my boss; with that neighbor; as I am waiting for something to happen.

Prayer is a powerful weapon and just maybe we need to read the instruction manual a little more carefully before we head out to the firing range. This verse points to one of the many ways in which we tend to pray improperly – dare I say, ignorantly? I am as guilty as you are of asking God to give me strength. Help me to be strong when I am faced with temptation. Please let me be strong when I don’t feel like doing the right thing. Give me strength when my loved one is in trouble. But here, we don’t read David’s request for strength. We see his acknowledgment that God is his strength.

What’s the difference? you ask. Well, read the rest of the Psalm. Therein, David listed a multitude of calamities which he had faced and from which he had been delivered. There is not one victory for which David can take credit. The closest he comes to speaking of his own strength begins in verse 32 where he says, “It is God who arms me with strength . . .” He goes on to itemize more specific ways in which God enabled him to perform strongly – but, admittedly, he wasn’t strong without the armor provided by God. He wouldn’t have asked God to give him strength – because he knew that God was his strength.

Do you see from this example how we might need to learn to pray more effectively? Do you want to pray more properly and more powerfully? Consult the user’s manual. Do a word search on prayer in the New Testament. Look at the context; compare the passage to other passages. What did Jesus say about prayer? What model did he establish? Ask the Holy Spirit to help you interpret correctly. Turn your prayer life into a WMB – a Weapon of Mass Blessing!

The power of prayer does not rest in the person praying; it rests in God.*