All My Desire

Jesus once told His disciples, "your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." That can sound like an objection to most of what we do when we pray. Put the objection as strongly as you can: telling God your troubles is like describing a house fire to the One who watched it start.

Psalm 38 treats that fact as settled and goes on praying anyway. "Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee." David is not arguing with the point; he is standing on it. Much of the psalm reads like a doctor's report: "There is no soundness in my flesh," and "My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me." He knows that God can already see every bit of it, and still he keeps talking for thirteen more verses.

One detail shows what all that talking is for. To everyone else in the psalm, David says nothing. "But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth." His friends "stand aloof from my sore," his enemies "imagine deceits all the day long," and he answers none of them. Every word he has goes in one direction, toward God. Even the word for what reaches God is "groaning," a sound that carries no information at all, and God hears it.

Now go back to what Jesus said, and look at what He was arguing against: "use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." He gave God's knowing as a reason to stop trying to move God with a pile of words. The very next thing He did was give His disciples a prayer to say out loud. So pray anyway, at whatever length it takes, to the one Person who does not need to be told. Then you can say with David, "For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God."

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 145 is Hunger Satisfied (Matthew 5:6).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two