BROADCASTS.com

"Hasten, O God, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me” (Psalm 70:1).

Anne Lamott once said that the best prayers she knows are: 'Help me!' and 'Thank you!'

She has a friend who has two very different prayers. Each morning the friend prays 'Whatever' and each evening, 'Oh, well.'

Recognizing it's a grand oversimplification, most of the prayers in the Book of Psalms can be divided into, 'Help me!' and 'Thank you!' prayers. The resignation in the prayers of Lamott's friend are unknown in the Bible. Its prayers are full of urgency and passion and expectation.

And how could they not be? Our need is great and the God we pray to, our only hope, is responsive, powerful and His promises are extravagant. And so is His grace.

Psalm 70 is mostly one of the 'Help me!' prayers. It has been used this way since its earliest days. You will find an earlier version in Psalm 40:13-17. That was probably its original setting. Later, it was taken from there and used in the liturgy of temple worship.

One of the earliest Christian preachers said, “This [Psalm] should be poured out in unceasing prayer so that we may be delivered in adversity and preserved and not puffed up in prosperity. You should meditate constantly on this verse in your heart. You should not stop repeating it when you are doing any kind of work or performing some service or are on a journey. Meditate on it while sleeping and eating and attending to the least needs of nature…Let it be the first thing that comes to you when you awake, let it anticipate every other thought as you get up, let it send you to your knees as you arise from your bed, let it bring you from there to every work and activity, and let it accompany you at all times.”

The Benedictine monks begin each of their seven daily 'hours' of prayer with Psalm 70. Maybe we ought to do that too. Learn a few verses of this song and use them 7 times each day in prayer. It's one way to weave dependence on God into our lives.

Christians have long recognized that we face two equal dangers. When we are in trouble, we think we need to solve each problem ourselves. When we are in prosperity, we think we have earned it all. The regular repetition of this prayer was encouraged to help us develop the anxiety free life Jesus encourages in Matthew 6.

The Psalm 70 'Help me!' prayer is like a one size fits all pair of socks. It can be adjusted to fit all sorts of circumstances. And often, in times of trouble, 'Help me!' is the most we can muster. In those times, we have some good biblical words to form into our prayers.

But in the good times, when all is at peace, we ought not to forget that we have this prayer in our spiritual arsenal. It helps keep us humble and alert, reminding us how much we need God's help, even when it doesn't seem like it.

Yet, in the middle of the Psalm is a call to rejoice and be glad in the Lord (4). More than that: we declare that God is exalted. Those who know his helping, saving hand need to proclaim what God has done. The psalm is more than a 'help me' cry. It is also part of the 'Thank you!' stream.

Even while we cry 'Help me', when we are not sure when or how God will come to our rescue, there is the glimmer of sunshine. We anticipate a time of rejoicing. While we wait for God to act, we are glad that we have a God we can call on for help.