The Blessing of Being Poor and Needy
Scripture Texts: Psalm 86:1-13
I cannot over emphasize how important prayer is in all our spiritual lives and in the life of our church. Prayer is the fuel and the engine of our personal and corporate lives. Everywhere in Scripture we are urged and pleaded with to offer up prayers of thanksgiving and intercession and petition to God.
The book of Psalms is called the hymn book of the Bible and it is also the prayer book of the Bible. God gave us this book to teach us and give us wisdom for how to sing and how to pray in every kind of circumstance and situation. There is no human experience that can’t be sung and prayed to God, our heavenly Father.
For everything we do we need tools, objects to help us accomplish a task. Whether farming, cooking, learning, building, communicating, or getting from one place to another, we need tools.
Our most important work is spiritual, and the most important tool for our spiritual work is prayer. And God’s gift to help us in this is the Book of Psalms.
This is God helping us have a conversation with Him that is free from the corruptions of our own minds and souls. The Psalms get out of our ruts, out of our laziness in prayer, out of our repetition and triviality and mediocrity. They help us find our words as we try to express our hearts and souls to God.
The overarching message in the Book of Psalms is twofold: (1) God is good, and (2) life is difficult. The life of faith is lived between these two realities.
Brothers and sisters, a new school year and a new church year are before us. We dare not begin without making an appeal to our God for His help.
This evening let’s take the message, meaning and method of Psalm 86 as our help and hope. I title this meditation, The Blessing of Being Poor and Needy.