Some time ago I made a discovery. I’m still struggling with it. I was reading Psalm 73:25: “Whom do I have in heaven but You? And I desire nothing on earth but You.” (HCSB) I realized then that prayer is not about me. It is about God.
Prayer is not about my getting an answer to my request. It is about being in the awesome presence of God. In his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers correctly said, “The meaning of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not of the answer.” (2/7)
The Psalmist testifies to his passion to be in the presence of God:
“O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
to see Your power and Your glory.”
(Psalm 63:1-2, NKJV)
Yet he also cries out to God for help:
“Lord, I call to You;
My rock, do not be deaf to me.
If You remain silent to me,
I will be like those going down to the Pit.
Listen to the sound of my pleading
When I cry to You for help,
When I lift up my hands
Toward Your holy sanctuary.”
(Psalm 28:1-2, HCSB)
From the presence of these two passages in the Bible and many more like them we see there is a time to plea for God’s help and a time to simply bask in His presence. While our priority is to be consciously in God’s presence, we need not feel guilty when we come to Him as a child to his father asking a favor, for our Father enjoys giving good gifts to His children. (Matthew 7:7-11)
I find I need to spend more time cultivating my focused fellowship with God, so that camaraderie will be in the forefront even when I ask something of Him.
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