Psalm 86:1-7 "Learning How to Pray through Psalm 86"

Through the Psalms, God has recently been teaching me how to pray according to His will and not my own. When praying according to my own will, I always focus on my own concerns and pursuits through my own perspective of the world, namely that of a weak human being. However, the Bible, as the revealed will of God, provides both the concerns and pursuits we are to have as His servants, and also the manner in which we are to petition God.

Psalm 86 is a personal prayer of David, the type of prayer that he probably prayed all the time. Yet even David’s personal prayer exhibits an utter lack of worldly or trivial requests, and in the first seven verses of Psalm 86, David prays for mercy on his soul with a spirit of humility and dependence on God. What strikes me most about David’s prayer is that he prays humbly yet boldly, dependently yet with confidence that God will answer.

1 Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me;
For I am poor and needy.

David does not appear to be thinking of any particular persecution while writing these first few verses. Instead, David is crying out for God to be merciful on his poor and needy soul, and we must always come before God humbly recognizing the sad condition of our souls without the Lord’s grace. The imagery evoked is that of God stooping down to us, and other Psalms such as Psalm 104 and 139 expound the greatness of God through His creative works and omniscience. The thought of coming before such a great God sometimes fills me with misgiving, but the next verse demonstrates that we do not pray in vain.

2 Preserve my life, for I am holy;
You are my God;
Save Your servant who trusts in You!

Psalm 86 is a prayer with hope, for David immediately turns to God for salvation after admitting his helplessness. We receive Christ’s righteousness through believing, trusting, and embracing Christ as our God, and through Christ we pursue and receive preservation unto eternal life. This verse reminds me that all of my prayers are based on my salvation in Christ, and thus all of my prayers are to be poor and needy and with hope. “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” Ephesians 1:18

3 Be merciful to me, O Lord,
For I cry to You all day long.

We should pray with perseverance. How often do you cry out to God for mercy? Once a week? Never? David felt the need to plead mercy “all day long”. Our prayers for mercy concerning our souls should be so persistent, that we can say to God, “Lord, I am grieved by my sin and lack of spiritual growth. I think on and pray about my soul constantly. You are the only one able to answer my prayer, so I will call upon you all day long.”

4 Rejoice the soul of Your servant,
For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

David asks for mercy, and then praises God for being abundantly merciful to His people. He asks for forgiveness, and then extols God’s goodness and readiness to forgive. We do not pray to a harsh and unforgiving God but to an abundantly merciful and good God. Our prayers can thus be made in faith, and I have experienced, as David certainly had, that God is truly good to His prayerful servants.

6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
And attend to the voice of my supplications.

7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,
For You will answer me.

Praying confidently means that we can know that God will answer our prayers. If this prayer was anywhere else but in the Bible, we would say the prayer to be presumptuous. Yet Jesus commands us to pray in the same way.

12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

John 14:12-14

We can learn from the first seven verses of Psalm 86 that God will not ignore our humble cries for forgiveness and mercy on our souls since He cannot deny Himself. Psalm 86 clearly shows that the state of our souls, and thus our ability to glorify God on earth, is a request made in Christ’s name. David understood that he was praying God’s will which allowed him to pray in a humble yet confident manner, a manner of prayer we all should strive to achieve. 

Resource: Ryle, J.C. Practical Religion