Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily!
– Psalm 31:2
Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!
– Psalm 31:24
How about the tension between those two verses? The same Psalm, the same song, the same prayer at the beginning is saying, “God, please listen to me and help me fast. Rescue me speedily. Today, right now, as fast as possible!” There’s a longing for help in the moment. “God, please do something now.” How often is that the cry of our hearts? “God, we need your help now. Please help now, at this moment. God, as soon as possible, please do something.” We all can identify with that.
And then, as the Psalm progresses and just praises God for his power and his wisdom and his love, and then you get to the end, and Psalm 31:24 says, “Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.”
Psalm 31:2 shows that it’s right to ask God for speedily answered prayers.
So apparently, it’s right and good when we are praying to ask God for his help now, immediately, speedily. That’s not wrong to ask God for that, to cry out to God in a Psalm 31:2 kind of way.
At the same time, trusting God, taking courage in our hearts as we wait for God to answer in his time, according to his wisdom and his power and his love, knowing that he is working even when we are waiting. And even when things are not happening as fast as we would like them to happen, or even the way we would like them to happen, that doesn’t mean he’s not listening to us. That doesn’t mean that he’s not working in ways we cannot see for our good. So, be strong and take courage as you wait for the Lord.
Oh, God, help us, we pray, to live in these tensions. God, there are so many things, I can think of so many things in my life right now that I’m praying for and praying for others’ lives that I would love to see, God, you answer speedily. Lord, that you would rescue people that I have in my heart and mind speedily, that you would work in my own life in certain ways speedily. God, we pray for that. All the things that come to our minds and hearts when we think of incline your ear to us, oh God, rescue us, help us provide for us, deliver us speedily. God, we pray that with trust in you. And God, we pray for that trust.
Psalm 31:24 shows how courage grows through trust in God.
God, you’ve given every reason for us to trust in you. You are all-powerful, you are all-wise, you are all-loving, and you’ve shown that over and over and over again. And yet, we are prone to think we know better than you.
God, help us to die to ourselves, to trust in you, to wait for you, and to trust that you’re working in our waiting. And we pray for your strength, just like Psalm 31:24 says. In our waiting, we pray for courage. In our waiting, we pray that our hearts would hold on to hope as we wait for you to work in the ways that we trust are best, and are good for us and for others. Oh, God, you are all-wise and we are not. So, we praise you for inclining your ear to us and we praise you for being worthy of our waiting.
Prayer for the Parihar Rajput People
And, God, as we pray for unreached people today who don’t know you, and have never even heard the good news of your love for them, God, we pray for the Parihar Rajput people of India, almost half a million of them, we pray, Psalm 31:2 over them. Rescue them speedily, we pray. God, we’re interceding for them. Incline your ear to us. Rescue the Parihar Rajput people of India speedily. God, fast, cause the gospel to get to them, we pray. And we pray for those who work to spread the gospel to them, that you give them strength and perseverance and trust in you as they do that work.
Oh, God, we pray all this according to your Word in Psalm 31. In Jesus name, amen.