Have Faith in the One Who Has Heard Your Prayer

Psalm 6:8-9

Turn away from me all workers of evil,
for YHWH has heard the sound of my weeping.
YHWH has heard my plea for grace;
YHWH my prayer will take up.

Countless times in the Christian life we pray and immediately begin to doubt that our prayer will be answered.

The psalmist here teaches us a thing or two about faith. He laments emphatically for sure (6:1-7), yet just as emphatically does he have trusts in God’s deliverance (6:8-10). The Hebrew tense he uses to describe his appeal to God in v.8 (“YHWH has heard the sound of my weeping / YHWH has heard my plea for grace”) is akin to the prophetic words of old – once said considered done. Deliverance is yet to be, but because YHWH has heard his cry for help, he believes wholeheartedly in the “Amen” of his prayer that YWH will answer.

How can one’s faith be so unshakeable? Because of the object of his faith: the unshakeable YHWH. During our time of lectio divina on this psalm in class, the psalm was narrated in different translations. Words came and changed, descriptions came and passed, but only “YHWH” stayed the same throughout. There is no synonym for YHWH. Change this object of faith, and the psalmist’s confidence falls flat.

My family has been praying for some matters over the years but not only has there been little improvement, things seem to have gotten worse. Over time, our prayers became dry and stagnant. But the night after the class on Psalm 6, I shared with my family what I had learnt from the psalmist’s prayer, and we realised – prayers are no mere words spoken in vain. As Oswald Chambers reminds us, “Prayer does not equip us for greater works — prayer is the greater work.” For that reason, we can say “Amen” with the psalmist, “YHWH has heard the sound of my weeping and my plea for grace.”

Esther Peh (MDiv 2)