O Lord Hear My Prayer
Psalm 6 starts off with a harrowing cry to God to be heard for tangible change in their life. “My bones are shaking with terror while you O Lord, how long?” Words this fierce speak from a deep place, hoping to be heard by The One who calls from and lives in the midst of our deep. How much do we dare to pray for specific change?
One of the times of greatest for conviction for me in seminary came around how often we are content praying vaguely. My worship professor L. Edward Phillips noted this when talking about the mild congregational prayers that are often uttered in middle class churches, where we often just ask God to change our disposition and not material realities. “Lord, help us hear you better. Help us love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us hear the cry of the needy. Forgive us of our pride. Help us endure the pandemic.” Phillips noted that while these prayers are important, when they are the only prayers we render, they suggest that we don’t need anything material to change: in other words, we have all of the materials that we need and so we only need to reform our dispositions.
Of course, this was a generalization. Many churches of all economic means do pray boldly for material change. But wow was I convicted during that class, because so often I don’t pray for material changes for me but rather just changes in my disposition.
So I recorded this song with the hope that I might change the content of my own prayers. How might resting assured emerge from changing the nature of our corporate prayers such that they were bigger, more specific?
Lord, as people listen to O Lord Hear My Prayer, may their bodies be healed from COVID. May marriages be restored and strengthened. May the young people blossom in school because their parents see more of their gifts. May people restrain themselves from excesses that our societies take as sacrosanct. May this song the coral reef by mystically encouraging people to not litter or buy needless plastics. Lord, may this song affect the way we think about transportation and emission rates. May we exercise self-restraint in needless movement that hurts us all. Lord, may this song help us stop killing each other this weekend with words, cancel culture, and gossip. Lord, may this song help people with economic power rest so that those who don’t have more of a chance to do so as well.
Lord, hear my prayer! Amen.
Photo by Amaury Gutierrez on Unsplash