Psalm 66 NLT
Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me. For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke. If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer. Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me. (16-20)
Prayer is the lifeline for the believer; it is the greatest privilege that we have and yet the most neglected practice for most of us. Think about it, if you are a child of God then you can go directly into His presence in the name of Jesus and share your heart, cry out for your needs, submit to His will, and be conformed to His image through prayer. There is no greater privilege we share, so why is prayer so neglected? We often let the busyness of life or the distractions of the world keep us from spending quality time speaking (and more importantly listening) to our Lord.
The writer of this Psalm gives us his own testimony and lets us know what the Lord did for him, and in so doing, he also gives us some secrets to effective prayer. First, the Psalmist says he cried out for help to God. I think a big mistake we often make is to trust in others, or in ourselves or in our own resources to solve our problems rather than relying foremost on God. Second, he says that he “praised Him” as he spoke. In other words, prayer is not just coming to God and asking for things, but it is also acknowledging His glory and greatness and communing with Him in thanksgiving. Third, he tells us that he confessed his sin first.
One common principle regarding prayer is that for your prayers to be effective and heard your heart must first be clean. I am not saying that God is unable to hear the prayers of the unrepentant, but it seems He often refuses to listen until our hearts and minds are in the right frame before Him. God does promise to listen and as the Psalmist exclaims, He actually pays attention to our prayer, but only when our hearts are cleansed by the blood of Jesus and our minds are right before Him. Confess your sins to Him today, praise Him for who He is and what He’s done, cry out to Him in prayer, and then take time to meditate and listen clearly for His voice. Those who come to God in that way can be assured that “He will not ignore your prayer or withdraw His unfailing love from you.”
