Psalm 65 It is fitting to praise You, O God, in Zion. One should do for You what he vowed. 2You are the One Who hears prayer, and everyone should come to You.
The first line is probably not translated well, though it follows many translations. The commentators Keil and Delitzsch write, “To Thee is resignation praise, i.e., resignation is (given or presented) to Thee as praise…What is intended is that submission or resignation to God which gives up its cause to God and allows Him to act on its behalf, renouncing all impatient meddling and interference (Exo_14:14).” This makes a lot of sense. If you believe God hears prayers, you are not going to be running around acting as if God did not answer your prayers and getting in His way. I’m quite certain, more often than not, when it seems God has not answered our prayers it’s because we don’t believe He is going to answer our prayers and we start doing stuff to get in His way. It is as James writes in chapter 1, “6You should ask with faith and have no doubts. Anyone who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. 7Such a man should not expect to get anything from the Lord. He’s indecisive – wavering in everything he does.” But if we are going to pray, believe God will hear you and answer your prayers. Act as if God has answered your prayers and do nothing. This is not saying be like the proverbial guy who refuses help that comes to him while waiting for God to act. The help that comes is God’s answer. What I am saying is, don’t ask for God to do something then go off and do something as if He isn’t going to do something. God is not a “just in case” God. He is not insurance. He is to be our everything.
Not that we make a lot of vows these days. I think we actually discourage it because we too easily get into a transactional rather than a faith relationship with God. But hey, if you promised God something, go do it (unless of course it is against His revealed will). Just know, God is going to do what God is going to do.
God, the God of Israel, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the One who hears prayers. Everyone should come to Him. There is no one else who can help. There is no one else who can provide every good. There is no one else who has the wisdom, power, strength, resources and knowledge of past, present and future who can answer our prayers in the manner which is best for us. A friend used to say, “Prayer lessens the burden.” It should as it puts the burden on God. . When we turn to created things to fix our problems, we make idols of them. If we keep turning to them, we often become addicted to them. Whatever relief they used to provide will eventually fail us and we’ll keep chasing them, expecting them to do for us what only God can do. The only thing to do then is to turn to God, present your requests to Him, trust He will take care of it and give Him as verse one states the proper praise by resigning ourselves to God’s answer. Then we will have some peace of mind.
3Our sins overwhelm us, but You forgive our wrongs.
They overwhelm us because we trusted in them to do for us what only God can do. I think God made this a principle so that we would eventually give up hoping in created things. When we do realize our pitiful situation, God is there to forgive us our wrongs for the sake of Christ Jesus, His innocent suffering and death. We may cry out with Paul, “wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” What a gracious, merciful, kind, and loving God we have who forgives us our wrongs for the sake of Jesus. Let us then abandon all hope in anyone and anything else and resign ourselves to trusting God hears our prayers which is the praise He desires from us.
Merciful God and Father, give us faith to trust You hear our prayers and are acting on them before we open our mouths that we may praise You with inaction on our part. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.