Prayer and Obedience

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to our podcast for Beyond Ordinary Women. My friend who isn’t actually a guest because she is a member of our ministry team, but this is Claudia McGuire, and we’ve had her on many times. Welcome, Claudia. I’m so glad you’re with me today. Thank you.

Claudia >> I’m happy to be here today. Thank you for asking me.

Kay >> Right. Well, Claudia is going to talk about praying with obedience.

Now, Claudia has lots of experience in the church world. She worked at Chase Oaks Church for almost two decades, I think, a long time. She still speaks and teaches Bible studies and does leadership stuff and will speak at a retreat or a training of any kind.

And so today, she’s going to talk about prayer. We’ve talked about prayer before, but today, Claudia wanted to talk about praying with obedience. So I have to ask you what does that mean to pray with obedience?

Claudia >> Well, I think that is a great question.

Kay >> You never expected one!

Claudia >> I didn’t very well, actually. I don’t think we think about it. I’m wondering if we think about that aspect of prayer enough for those of us who who do pray. I think that we just don’t take into account that prayer is more than just casting our cares on God, just throwing things at him and saying, “Help me. Get help me get out of this—or whatever.”

There is an aspect of obedience, and that’s kind of what I want to talk through as I go through this psalm. Psalm 31 is what we’re going to look at. But prayer in itself, which is the ability to communicate with our creator. I think it started way back in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve used to walk in the cool of the day in the garden and talk to God.

And I don’t really see or know specifically how that morphed into our current prayer life. You know how we pray today, but we do see prayers all throughout the Bible, and it’s just a privilege that I think our God has given us. Not only is it a privilege, but it’s also something I think that involves an aspect of surrender when we come to God. It involves trust that he’s there. It takes vulnerability on our part to actually come before the throne of grace, as the Bible calls it.

And then, really when we open our hearts and our needs to the Father, that also involves listening and believing that he hears. So if we’re actively praying about something without listening or looking for God to answer, we might be missing one of the biggest aspects of prayer, which is obedience.

Like if I’m praying about something—my obedience or what I might hear or sense—it’s that I just really need to keep praying about this. It’s something I don’t have a peace about. I have no idea what the answer is or the outcome is going to be. That could be my obedience is just keep praying about it.

It could be that maybe God impresses on me to go to somebody. Maybe I need to ask her forgiveness. Maybe there’s something that’s creating a barrier between me and God. You know, that’s obedience.

Do I hear that? Should I meet that person? Or do I pick up the phone and call them? Has he put someone on my heart that I need to talk to? Maybe it isn’t about forgiveness. And so do I do that? Or am I thinking, Oh, that’s just my brain, the way it works, you know, maybe it is God, but it doesn’t hurt to send a text or pick up the phone and just say, “Hey, I just thought about you today. What’s going on?”

And it could be, though, that as a result of our prayers, God wants us to start something, start something new, start doing something we haven’t done before. Maybe he calls us to stop doing something that is not healthy for us or it’s not putting us on the path that he really wants us to be on. So starting something or stopping something that practice of listening actually just opens up what our next steps might be as a result of prayer.

Again, instead of just lining all this up before him and then walking off and expecting the magic wand to make everything right, you know, there could be something more that we need to do to cooperate with God right now.

Kay >> Yeah, it might be for God to answer that prayer that we have to act in some way.

Claudia >> Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So in Psalm 31, I really started studying it with that in mind because I love David’s psalms. I love David. I cannot wait to meet him in heaven. And this again is a heart cry from David. He pours out his heart. He’s so honest in most of the psalms that he’s written. But in this one, he’s in trouble and he’s exhausted. And he says he feels like a broken vessel.

And I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that sometimes feeling like a broken vessel. I’m just exhausted. Exhausted sometimes that I just don’t feel like praying, and so I just want to go to bed and sleep. I just, you know, maybe the main thing that I need to do is prayer.

So it’s again, it’s just this honest prayer that David writes, speaks before God and telling him about the situation, and how David’s feeling, and how he’s interpreting it. Because sometimes our interpretation isn’t the correct interpretation of our circumstance, right? But it’s also a reminder which we’ll see of just David’s faith and his trust in God, that God will take care of him. Just like we see in lots of David’s psalms, you know, regardless of what life looks like, what it felt like at the time, because we can’t rely on our feelings on our emotions all the time.

And then we’re also going to see how David was not only here, but again, in many of the things he wrote, just how he was obedient and how he worshiped and how he trusted and loved the Lord. So Psalm 31 is 24 verses. It’s not short, but it’s not really long. And so I just thought maybe if we just go through it and we pick out some things, quite a few things.

That’s really the basis for this is to see, just see what we need to see here. Right?

So three distinct lists emerged out of this psalm, and I don’t take the credit for being the first one to do this. I’ve not seen it, but I’m sure everybody who studied Psalm 31 in depth does the same thing.

But I did it because I felt like that’s what I was supposed to do. So as I looked closely through these, mainly I saw this thread of obedience that just spoke to me. And I want to keep going back to that to see how does my prayer life show obedience? Is it fruitful that way? Because obedience leads to transformation. I believe.

So let’s just run through this. I’m just going to read through the Psalm and the three lists are: first. we’re going to look at who is God; what does he do; and what am I supposed to do?

Or what did David do? And David, you know, basically is the best example of what we’re supposed to do. So that is where I’m going to go. So we’re going to start with Psalm 31.

And David says, “In you, Oh Lord, I’ve placed my trust and taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed in your righteousness. Rescue me.”

Right off the bat we see some things about who is God. David calls him Lord. He says he’s a righteous God. So that’s who is God. He’s Lord, He’s righteous.

What does he do? David says, “in your righteousness, you rescue me.” So God is a rescuer. That’s what he does.

And David says in this same verse, “I’ve placed my trust and taken refuge in you.” That’s obedience. And I just love David just right away, starting out with that statement of obedience.

In verse two, “Incline your ear to me. Deliver me quickly. Be my rock of refuge and a strong fortress to save me.” Yeah. And we see God as a deliverer. That’s who he is. He’s a rock of refuge. He’s a strong fortress. And David says, being those things save me. And that’s what God does, right? He saves us. So that’s what he does, and he delivers us. He saves us.

He says, “Yes, you are my rock and my fortress for your name’s sake you will lead me and guide me.” God is a leader, and God guides us. It’s not just WHO he is that he’s a leader and he guides our lives, but it’s WHAT he does. God acts out of his character right of who he is.

And I have to ask myself, is that what I do? Do I act in line with my character or do I act like somebody else? You know what? Would people be surprised that I love to read the Bible because of the way I act in other words? So I love reading that too, that we see who God is and what he does just comes out of who he is.

“You will draw me out of the net that they have secretly laid for me, for you are my strength and my stronghold.” God is a strength and a stronghold—verse four. We see that very clearly in verse five: “Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me. Oh, Lord, the God of truth and faithfulness.” David obediently commits himself to God.

That’s obedience, you know. Have we done that? Do we do that? Or are we just like, “God, you’re my last resort.” You know, I’m just going to tell you—I’m not saying God won’t answer when we come to him as a last resort. But, David, just right up front, “I commit to you, my spirit. You have redeemed me.” So God redeems. He’s a God of truth and faithfulness.

And then he says,” I hate those who pay regard to vain idols, but I trust in the Lord.” Once again, he makes that statement in obedience. I trust in you and God is trustworthy. That’s who God is. We can trust him with our worship and our faith and with everything.

In verse seven, David says, “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love because you have seen my affliction. You have taken note of my life’s distresses, and you have not given me into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a broad place.”

David starts off that verse with “I’ll rejoice and be glad.” That’s obedience. Rejoice and be glad in what? In God’s steadfast love. God loves—that’s who he is. That’s what he does.

And in both that verse and verse eight, David says, “You’ve seen my selection. You’ve not given me into the hand of the enemy.” So we see God as someone who sees us. He sees us. He knows what we’re going through, and he protects us.

When David says, “You haven’t given me into the hand of the enemy. God’s our protector be gracious and compassionate to me, O LORD, for I am in trouble. My eyes clouded and weakened by grief, my soul and my body also.” We see God as gracious and compassionate. David just says, “This is who you are, Lord.”

And then his obedience comes in when he admits his weakness. He says, “I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble, and I’m weak.”

And in one of our previous discussions on prayer, we talked about we don’t like to be weak. People don’t like to admit that they can’t do something or they can’t overcome something. And I think that sometimes comes into our prayer life. Is it embarrassing that we’re weak?

So he says his eye is clouded and weakened, so he’s admitting his weakness before God. He is submitting to God’s strength when he has none of his own.

And then we’ll see in verses 10 through 13 this deeper aspect of his vulnerability before God.

He says, “For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. My strength is failed because of my iniquity. And even my body has wasted away. Because of all my enemies, I’ve become a reproach and a disgrace, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances. Those who see me on the street run from me. I’m forgotten like a dead man out of mind. I’m like a broken vessel. For I have heard the slander and whispering of many. Terror is on every side. While they schemed together against me, they plotted to take away my life.”

So as I alluded to earlier, we see David just laying this—this is what’s happening. This is what’s going on. Not that God doesn’t know it, but again, we can put it before him, just letting him know this is where I am. I really need you. I do not know what to do and not hiding things because God knows anyway.

So just admitting that before the Father is not only obedient, it’s a very healthy thing to do and not to try to hide those things or think things aren’t as bad as they really are. Sometimes we do that, we kind of gloss over it or we have this pat answer like, “But God’s got it. It’s going to be okay.” Is it?

You know, I see a lot of people and stories in the Bible where it’s not really okay for a long time. And maybe you just need to continue that prayer life or ask others to pray for you.

So there’s David laying out his situation in front of God.

And then in verse 14, he says, “But as for me, I trust confidently in you and your greatness. Oh Lord, I said, you are my God. My times are in your hands. Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from those who pursue and persecute me.”

This verse has been like a life verse to me for longer than I can remember.

Well, you are, my God, my times are in your hands. I didn’t really talk about the rescuing aspect, but I probably should have because there have been times that I’ve needed rescue. I did kind of add it in there for a few years because I felt like I had some enemies.

But I love again that David just declares his trust that he confidently trusts in God—that God is great. And he says, “You are my God. That’s just a confession. God likes to hear that. That’s praising his name and declaring, “You’re my God, I want to worship you. And I know my times are in your hands. They’re not really in mine, but you are going to rescue me out of the hand of my enemies.”

And that’s just such a beautiful picture to me of again, of just praise and confession of who God is. That was verse 14,15.

So in verse 16: “Make your face shine upon your servant. Save me in your lovingkindness.” The obedience I see there is that David asks. He says, “Save me.” It brings it all down to this one thing. He talks about rescuing me and things that are going on, but he just says, “Save me in your lovingkindness.”

And I wonder sometimes if we just don’t ask for what we need in a situation or with a person or in a relationship, whatever that might be. That could be one of the problems right there. In obedience you need to ask. You need to come before the Father and ask for what it is that you need. Again, not that he doesn’t know, right? But we’re told to ask.

In verse 17, 18. And 18, he talks about—Well, I’ll tell you in a minute. Let me read this verse. “Let me not be put to shame. Oh Lord, for I call on you. Let the wicked be put to shame. Let them be silent in Sheol,” which is the netherworld or the place of the dead.

“Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently and arrogantly against the consistently righteous with pride and contempt.”

Well that’s kind of a hard verse, but we know that in there we’re supposed to pray for our enemies, right? I’m pretty sure the Bible tells us to pray for our enemies. Yes, and it’s sometimes very hard to do well. But after reading, I feel like it is David’s prayer for his enemies in these verses.

“Let me not be put to shame. Let them be put to shame”, which sounds so wrong if you’re supposed to love your enemies, and pray for your enemies. But the truth is, these people are— they’re denying Christ. They are against David. They’re against everything David stands for. And so David’s just saying, “I’m just asking you to come in and see the difference here between them and between me.

And help these enemies to stop what they’re doing, what they’re saying, because it’s not in their best interest to continue to be insolent and wicked.” Right? It’s not in their or anyone’s best interest. So for me, I see. That is almost like David being obedient and praying for his enemies. Maybe that’s a stretch.

Kay >> Well, you know, if David’s going to be protected and safe from them, then something has to happen to them. I mean, you can’t be saved from somebody who continues doing what they’ve been doing. So it’s sort of like, yeah, there’s got to be a balance here, because for one thing to happen, then something has to happen on the other side, too.

Claudia >> Exactly. That’s true. Yeah.

In verse 19, “How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who reverently fear you, which you have prepared for those who take refuge in you before the sons of man!”

Again, we see David speaking of God’s goodness, and he is good and he acts out of his goodness.

“In the secret place of your presence, you hide them from the plots and conspiracies of man. You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.”

That’s just a picture again of God’s protection and sometimes a protection that I believe we’re not even aware of. When we’re in a hard situation, we don’t even know what God is protecting us from, right? Like maybe it could be a lot worse.

Kay >> I just said, isn’t that the truth!

Claudia >> Yes. And David says, “In this secret place of your presence, you hide these people, the ones that fear you and take refuge in you.”

So that’s just a beautiful picture, too, of God being a protector and just his goodness and his compassion I think.

In verse 21: “Blessed be the Lord, for he has shown his marvelous favor in lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.”

Blessed be the Lord. Again, praising God obediently praising God. David starts with that.

Blessed be the Lord. And sometimes I struggle with—who am I to bless the Lord what does that mean? Right? Do you ever think that?

Kay >> Yes, when I first kind of started reading verses that said that, I was like, “How do I bless God?”

Claudia >> Yeah.

Kay >> You know, it’s. Yeah.

Claudia >> This is an interesting—-we’re supposed to do it? But sometimes I’m just saying it may be God knows what we mean or it’s a way to just praise him, you know, and be thanking him.

“For he’s shown his marvelous favor and lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.” So God has shown his marvelous favor and lovingkindness. That is what God has done. And David blesses him for that.

“As for me, I said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your eyes.’”

Now, we sometimes say things that aren’t true. Right? And David wasn’t cut off from God’s eyes, but he certainly felt that way. Right. And I love that he clarifies because he says, “I said this in my alarm.”

Like, when you are first kind of overcome with something, you might say things you didn’t really mean or aren’t really true. And I feel like that’s where David is right there.

“I said in my alarm, I am cut off from your eyes. Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my supplications.”

These are specific requests that he had made when I cried to you for help.

Basically, again, we’re supposed to cry out to the Lord, and we see a lot of people through the Bible crying out to the Lord.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s something that we do because we know that God is our help.

“Love the Lord, all you, his godly ones,”

Love the Lord—that’s being obedient.

“Love the Lord. The Lord preserves the faithful and fully repays the arrogant.”

Once again, we see God acting. He preserves the faithful. And that’s part of our hope and trust, right? Not just in situations, but for life. You know, end of life, eternal life.

The last verse says, “Be strong and let your hearts take courage. All you who wait for and expectantly, confidently actually, expect the Lord. Be strong and let your hearts take courage. All you who wait for and confidently expect the Lord.”

That is just a statement, I think, that brings it all home for David, for the people that were on his side, so to speak, that might have been in his own camp. And for all of us today, everyone who has ever read this psalm. I believe that that statement is for them.

“Be strong and let your hearts take courage.” Those are two calls to obedience, really. Because we don’t always feel like we have courage. Like we could move into this statement that he calls us to do that.

“All you who wait for and confidently expect the Lord.”

I’m waiting for the Lord. I consider myself in verse 24, and I confidently expect him to come. I love that David ends this psalm on a note of just pure obedience and trust in God that in the midst of all this, when you feel like you’re cut off from God’s eyes, we can still be strong in him. We can take courage and have faith that he’s still who he says he is. That he is still going to hear us, help us. And that’s a, that’s a great—I don’t know—comfort, is it not the comfort? Yeah.

So in reading through that psalm, and I’m sure there are a lot of other things, if anyone read through it, God might show them other things of who he is and what he does and how he’s calling them to be obedient, what are some steps they can take to be obedient in their prayer life.

So we heard David’s belief in God and in we really read a lot about his vulnerability before God. And like I said before, God knew David’s struggle. It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of what was going on or he was surprised by what David said.

And he knows ours too. But he wants our humility. He wants us to submit before him. And that is, I guess it’s the place where obedience kind of starts with God—is just humbling ourselves before him, right?

And I believe that God wants to answer us. He wants to help us. He wants to use his Holy Spirit to comfort us and also help and guide us. That’s what the Spirit does for us. And that can only happen when we do come before the Father very openly and honestly. And I just feel like if our pride or shame or fear keeps us from praying, or from being, from listening or for being obedient by praying, then that just reveals a lot about not just our faith but our hope.

It I get kind of grieved when I’m in a situation where people are just not comfortable praying because, right? Even “Help!” is a prayer. Or someone doesn’t really want to share a request that there are things going on, but they just don’t feel like it’s big enough for God or that God really cares about that particular thing. But I just know that through our prayers and keeping our heart tuned to God, and asking what we might need to do to cooperate with him in our request, we can learn a lot more about obedience. And I’m kind of looking forward to pursuing that more in my prayer life.

Walking away from my prayers, “God, what is it I need to do or not do or stop doing or start doing?” And that’s where I feel like I am in the whole obedience through prayer or obedience in prayer. Just that aspect of it that, as I said in the beginning, a lot of us maybe don’t consider.

Kay >> Right unless we’re reading like in the epistles and are reading actual commands. You know, there are there are other things besides just actual commands that call for you to do something. And I think like you are telling us, the psalms are full of other types of calls from God— to trust him, to believe in him.

If we read something that says, you know, “I trust in you”, we need to. Are we trusting in him? We need to ask ourselves those questions. It’s not a command necessarily, although sometimes it is a command, but often it’s the psalmist just saying, “I’m putting my trust in you.” And we can obey that same prayer, having that same attitude, reading what the psalmist has said, even though it doesn’t necessarily say “Trust in me.” I think that’s what you’re trying to teach us to do here, and I think that’s a really valuable lesson.

Claudia >> Yeah. It’s just something that just really impacted me. And I just want to pay more attention to it. Just the obedience aspect.

There’s a lot more. I mean, prayer to me is an amazing thing. Right? It is an amazing privilege. So if I’m not participating in that relationship with God as I should be, I want to know how I could be.

So I can improve not only my trust in him, but just deepening our relationship by walking away from prayer and feeling like I am involved. And God does have things for me to do as a result. Of my requests and my circumstances.

Kay >> Yeah, I think one thing that the psalmists do, and David, particularly is to really show us how to be honest with God, which means we have to be honest with ourselves first. Ask where we are and what we need. To ask God about those things, we have to realize we need help, and it’s not just in us to do it.

I think what you said earlier that sometimes people feel like their requests are not big enough for God, and that suggests they’re big enough for you—that you can do everything on your own and you don’t need God. So it’s really a lie that sometimes we believe that we aren’t in need enough.

Claudia >>Right. Yeah.

Kay >> Thank you, Claudia. I think this is really helpful and I think that many people in our audience may have never really thought about this, just never really thought about just reading and realizing that we can do the same thing that David did. We can draw near to God, and we can also see how we need to change. What are we missing? Do I have the faith of David? Yes. I pray the way that David prayed. Yes, I think that’s wonderful.

Claudia >> Okay, good. Yeah. Thank you for just giving me the opportunity to really dig in to it and I enjoyed it.

Kay >> Yeah, well, I’m glad you did. Thank you for sharing with us your insights. For those of you out there, we have some other resources. Claudia and I have talked about prayer before.

And our other resources are on our podcast. We talked about answering questions about prayer. We talked about practical prayer solutions. Kelly Arabie and I talked about that. Claudia and I talked about finding joy through the Psalms, which is really about prayer.

I mean, just like you’ve pointed out here, that’s another way to do it. And so I would encourage you. You can look on our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. You can go to Resources and go down to the bottom of that. There’s a media list where you can search for Claudia’s name or you can search for prayer, the topic. You can do it. Anyway you can take one at the top titles and search for it.

I also wanted to mention that we do have some articles that I wrote on our website, “Why is Prayer So Hard?” And it’s a series of three.

You can search our blog for those. “Why Is Prayer So Hard?” And it would be really easy for you to find. So I would encourage you to do that. I would encourage you to grow in prayer and just pray more and ask and listen. As Claudia said, listen to what God’s telling you as you go through the verses. Just don’t just talk to him about what you need, but listen to what he’s saying to you.

So thank you, Claudia. I look forward to our next time together talking about prayer.

Claudia >> Thank you.