Psalm 28

To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock:
Do not be silent to me,
Lest, if You are silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
² Hear the voice of my supplications
When I cry to You,
When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.

³ Do not take me away with the wicked
And with the workers of iniquity,
Who speak peace to their neighbors,
But evil is in their hearts.
⁴ Give them according to their deeds,
And according to the wickedness of their endeavors;
Give them according to the work of their hands;
Render to them what they deserve.
⁵ Because they do not regard the works of the Lord,
Nor the operation of His hands,
He shall destroy them
And not build them up.

⁶ Blessed be the Lord,
Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
⁷ The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
And with my song I will praise Him.

⁸ The Lord is their strength,
And He is the saving refuge of His anointed.
⁹ Save Your people,
And bless Your inheritance;
Shepherd them also,
And bear them up forever.

My Bible puts the header “rejoicing in answered prayer” at the top of this one. It’s a little more than that, though. It is the whole cycle of prayer.

In verses 1 and 2, he cries to the lord. The emphasis is on making a clear supplication to God. David doesn’t just ask for what he wants, he stresses that he is calling to God with all he’s got, and that God is everything to him.

In verses 3-5, David makes his actual prayer. As has been the case with David, it’s about his enemies. I especially like how he describes the workers of iniquity: “who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts.” Anyone can accidentally be a hypocrite. While it’s not good in any way, it’s especially bad when it is done intentionally, while it’s hiding evil. David simply asks God to repay them what they deserve.

Verses 6 and 7 praise God for answering this particular prayer. I forget a lot to thank God for answered prayers. Not the big ones, mind you, but the little ones that I almost forgot I prayed. The general ones, like “let me have a not sucky day today” or “please let me fall asleep before 2 am.” But, how amazing is it that the God of the infinite universe took the time to give me that not sucky day or to help me fall asleep, when He’s got about a billion other things to do. I really should be thanking Him for every little answered prayer. I bet He appreciates that, like when you hold the door for the person a few steps behind you. You didn’t really go out of your way to do anything. It didn’t inconvenience you to stay there for another second, and they would have been fine to open the door by themselves, but we still like to be thanked anyway.

Finally, verses 8 and 9 praise God for His general goodness. I forget to do that too. It’s not really something I think about all that often. I don’t know why, I really should. I mean, how flattering is it when someone just tells you that you’re great even though you haven’t really done anything out of the ordinary? It’s awesome. The last time it happened to me, I even got a cookie and then I cried because I was so happy. And I don’t really do anything that great. God is keeping the whole world running. The least we could do is remind Him of how thankful we are for that once in a while.