Listen to my words, Lord,
    consider my lament.
2 Hear my cry for help,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.

3 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait expectantly.

In his fine book, ‘Don’t just stand there, pray something’, Ronald Dunn tells an amusing story of a group of Sunday school children who wrote to a missionary along these lines:

‘Dear Rev. Smith, we are praying for you. We are not expecting an answer.’

It makes one smile, but there is an ‘ouch’ factor. What are we expecting in answer to our prayers?

Recently, I read these words in Luke 18:1: ”Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” ‘Giving up’ is the very thing we are tempted to do, when praying over the long-haul, and nothing seems to be shifting.

PRAYER: Lord, help me this day to align myself with the Psalmist and pray with expectation.