Psalm 86:1 (NASB95): Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me;
For I am afflicted and needy.

David is pleading with God to hear his prayer. This plea brings to my mind a couple questions.

First, does God not hear us if we don’t ask Him to? No, that is not the point. This prayer speaks of the condescension of God to actually hear the pleas of His people. It’s an acknowledgement of God’s exaltation and man’s lowly state.

I often find myself, while speaking to God, my heavenly Father, forgetting that He is also the creator and sustainer of all that exists. Forgetting that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Forgetting that He alone is completely and exclusively sovereign over everything. It cannot be overstated that when we pray to Him, when we worship Him, and when we praise Him, our regard for Him must be in a manner that is worthy of Him. A.W. Tozer, in his classic book, The Knowledge of the Holy, says this:

The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him – and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.[1]

Second, is David feeling, as I sometimes do, as though his prayers are not penetrating even the ceiling above him? Is it as if his words bounce off the ceiling and right back to himself? I don’t know what David was feeling when he wrote this song, but I confess my own weakness here.

When these feelings come over me, it can be the most lonely and desperate feelings imaginable. In those times, I must remind myself of the truth that God has not moved—I have. It’s easy to get wrapped up life’s disappointments, difficulties, and deceptions. However, God’s truth is never faltering nor failing. He is still our loving heavenly Father who knows and cares for us; and, uses the trials of life to grow us and conform us to the image of His son.

“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified,” (Romans 8:26–30, NASB95).

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[1] Tozer, A.W.. The Knowledge of the Holy (p. 4). Fig. Kindle Edition.