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Worship Through Prayer
from the In Spirit & in Truth: A Study of Biblical Worship reading plan
OPEN YOUR BIBLE
Matthew 6:5-15, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 44:1-26
BY GUEST WRITER
Last night when I got into bed, I was completely wrecked by my sin—my selfishness in not loving my husband and children well, my discontentment, my quickness to anger, my quickness to speak out of anger… I could go on. And as I cried, I finally cried out to the Lord. I had been in the middle of writing this devotion on prayer, and yet turning to Him was not my first reaction. But the Lord, who sees and knows the depth of my sin much better than I do, met me and reminded me that He sees me in all my mess and loves me still. Indeed, there is great reward in prayer (Matthew 6:6).
Prayer is coming to my Father as a needy child, acknowledging my inability to change situations or people or my own heart, and then acknowledging that God is mighty and that He reigns, ascribing worth to the Lord for who He is.
In Psalm 44, this kind of worship is modeled for us. Here, the psalmist is very real with his emotions. His plea is raw with vulnerability. He feels abandoned, yet he begins and ends the psalm in recognition of God’s faithful love for His people. Despite feeling rejected and forgotten, he comes back to what he knows to be true: God is faithful.
This is just one way prayer blesses, or “rewards,” us. When we turn to God in prayer, we are reminded of who He is and who we are not. There is relief in remembering that we are not the center of all things—not even our own lives. He is. And as He recenters us, He is able to do serious work in our hardened hearts as only He can, bringing peace when we feel fraught with anxiety