“1Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. 2Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray. 3O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.” – Psalm 5:1-3 (ESV)
As I read this passage, I was taken to my prayer prior to my beginning to study in the morning. I open my pray as Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:9-13. I start off by giving praise to Him and then thanking Him for the blessings He provides for me. As I refer to the passage above as it relates to the example of prayer Jesus gave, the two are in line, with one significant difference.
David, in the above, opens his prayer asking God to hear him. He seeks an audience with God. David is very intentional with his actions and that should serve as an example for me. I have to be intentional with my prayer. I have to get God’s attention. I have to be overt in my prayer to Him.
I want to be clear here that God is always paying attention to me. He knows my every move, action, thought, and word, even before I do. He does not need me to shout out to Him and draw his attention directly to me. This action to asking for God’s attention is for me. I have to let Him know so that I will be focused in my prayer to Him. I ask God to hear me so that I know to come to Him fully and not just with my words.
When I am in the corporate world, I have the opportunity to work with others that are busy with other items and when I ask for an audience or get called into meetings, I have to remain focused and intentional to be sure that I am getting out there what I intended to get out there. There is a time and a place for everything and a meeting about staffing is not the time to talk about IT issues that have popped up over the course of the last week. I have to be intentional and make sure that I am using my time to focus on the work at hand.
In my relationship with God I should be asking for an audience with Him and focusing my attention to Him. I must be intentional and not wander from topic to topic. I have a plan of what to discuss and what questions to ask. There may be a lot to discuss and hash out with God, and He wants to hear it all, but I should also use my time to fully engaged with Him.
I want to be careful here so as to not say that we should only be speaking to God when we have an appointment. That could not be further from what I am speaking. I want to indicate here that as we pray, similar to David, we should be getting our attention by asking God to hear us. Any and all times I speak with God, I should be getting His attention, for my benefit, not His, and in doing so, that will keep me on task at the time and guide me to remain in Him throughout.
Once I have my attention, I should be following the model of prayer that Jesus laid out for us:
“9Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” – Matthew 6:9-13 (ESV)
When you pray, are you asking for God to hear you? Are you praying without intention? What if you asked God to hear you, not for His benefit, but for yours to be intentional and keep focused?
Trevor's Thoughts 