To you, Lord, I call;
    you are my Rock,
    do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you remain silent,
    I shall be like those who go down to the pit.
2 Hear my cry for mercy
    as I call to you for help,
as I lift up my hands
    towards your Most Holy Place.

3 Do not drag me away with the wicked,
    with those who do evil,
who speak cordially with their neighbours
    but harbour malice in their hearts.
4 Repay them for their deeds
    and for their evil work;
repay them for what their hands have done
    and bring back on them what they deserve.

5 Because they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord
    and what his hands have done,
he will tear them down
    and never build them up again.

6 Praise be to the Lord,
    for he has heard my cry for mercy.
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;
    my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
    and with my song I praise him.

8 The Lord is the strength of his people,
    a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.
9 Save your people and bless your inheritance;
    be their shepherd and carry them for ever. NIVUK

Do you see the movement in this psalm, from a starting point which maybe feels a little tentative (1,2), to a place of calm confidence in God (6-8)? It may be that you can relate to this? You don’t always feel at the beginning of your prayers as you do at the end, or in the middle even. At the outset David has a sense of what is in the balance: if the Lord doesn’t hear him, speak to him, and help him, he’s in deep trouble. (‘ ”If You are silent,” said David, ”I might just as well be dead! And if You don’t deliver me, You are treating me like the enemy!” Pretty powerful arguments!’ Warren Wiersbe).

But soon enough he is able to boldly declare that he has been heard.

Someone said, ‘Pray until you pray.’

It may take time to come to a place of assurance that you have the answer, (even if you don’t yet see it). You can have it in your heart before you have it in your hands.

Interestingly, in my ‘Bible in one year’, this psalm nestles adjacent to Mark 11, where Jesus says in verses 22-24: ”‘Have faith in God,’ …‘Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

PRAYER: ‘Give me the faith which can remove
and sink the mountain to a plain;
give me the childlike praying love,
which longs to build thy house again;
thy love, let it my heart o’er-power,
and all my simple soul devour.’ Charles Wesley

Lord, increase our faith!