Every Wednesday
How to Pray When Trouble Comes
By Marshall Segal in Desiring God
The Psalms are something of the Bible’s prayer guide and songbook. They teach us, in more than a hundred shapes and sizes, how to sing and how to pray. They model the inner life of genuine faith — the emotional life of a follower of Christ. They give us the mountains and valleys that come with trusting and following him. There are great mountains and great valleys that come for anyone who follows Christ.
Psalm 86 is a valley psalm. It’s a desperate psalm — not a hopeless psalm, but a desperate one. It teaches us how to pray when trouble comes.
Do you know how to pray when trouble comes? I don’t just mean, “Lord, help me,” or “Fix this” — but do you pray about trouble the way the Bible prays about trouble? I know I don’t always pray the way this psalm prays.
Preparing for this sermon, I was reminded of a prayer we prayed before meals in our home growing up: “God is great, God is good, and we thank you for this food.” I have no idea where the prayer came from (maybe my parents made it up), and I don’t entirely understand it. “God is great, and God is good . . .” Isn’t great better than good? Maybe great means big, mighty, and awesome, and good means he’s for us? Whatever it means, I’m so thankful for those thirteen simple words.
How many children grow up in homes where they never acknowledge that God has anything to do with the food on the table? How many children never hear their parents acknowledge God at all (except maybe to use his name in vain)? But I heard — PB&J after PB&J, spaghetti after spaghetti — “God is great, God is good, and he’s the one who gave us this food.”
It was a good prayer for three-year-old, four-year-old, five-year-old heart and mind — and yet, if you and I had lunch this week, and I still prayed like that, there would be something off, right? Hopefully I’ve grown some in the ways I express my thankfulness for spaghetti. Hopefully I still grow in thanking him.
I wonder if some of us are praying four-year-old prayers about trials. We haven’t learned how to pray grown-up prayers about the trouble in our lives (and we all have trouble of various kinds in our lives). We haven’t said, like the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). That’s my prayer for this morning: “Lord, teach us to pray — in this case, about the hard things in our lives.”
Four Prayers for Any Trouble
Before we try to learn how to pray about our trouble, we need to ask about the actual trouble here in Psalm 86. Why is David crying out to God like this?
We don’t know a lot, and it takes a while before we really learn any details about his situation, but we do find out what’s going on near the end of the psalm. Look at verse 14:
O God, insolent men have risen up against me;
a band of ruthless men seeks my life,
and they do not set you before them.
We have plenty of insolent men in our day, but we don’t call them that. Insolent men are rude men who don’t show respect for others (even the king). They’re troublemakers who stir up division and hostility. These horrible men are trying to kill the king.
We don’t know who these particular insolent men were, and unfortunately there were so many insolent men who tried to kill David throughout his life that we can’t even guess which ones these might be. Can you imagine? I don’t think any of you have ever gone to bed knowing someone is driving around looking for you, trying to kill you. That was normal for David. He was in serious trouble here.
And while our trouble is different from his, I believe God means for David’s trouble to teach us how to pray in our trouble, whatever trouble we face. I want to summarize the lessons in four simple prayers:
- Meet my need.
- Glorify your name.
- Teach me your way.
- Gladden my heart.
Grown-up prayers don’t need to be long or complicated. There are precious lessons for us in these four simple prayers.
- Meet My Need
First, “Lord, meet my need.” David doesn’t mention the insolent men in the first verses, but he does start right off by praying for what he needs in the moment. Beginning in verse 1:
Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am godly;
save your servant, who trusts in you — you are my God.
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day. (verses 1–3)
In other words, “Meet my immediate need. These guys are really trying to kill me, and I’m asking you to stoop down and intervene on my behalf. Do something about this, God. I know there are millions of people on earth, but I’m asking you to focus your infinite wisdom and strength to protect one of those millions from a few men.”
When you think about what the Psalms are — these divinely inspired prayer-songs meant to be studied, memorized, and rehearsed for thousands of years — it’s kind of wild how specific some of them are. God clearly wanted us to hear godly saints pray for specifics. It’s one of the great gifts of the Psalms (and of all the prayers in the Bible). We get to hear real people pray about real stuff. God knew we would have our own specifics (and he knew that our specifics would be really different from theirs), and he wanted us to know how to pray for specifics.
Do you still pray for the specifics in your life, even the little specifics? Philippians 4:6 says,
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
God wants us to pray for specific needs — large or small, anything and everything. If you’re anxious about something this morning — about anything — he wants you to pray about it. One way God accomplishes his God-sized plans for the world is to address you-sized needs in the world. We pray, “Lord, meet my need.”
- Glorify Your Name
The first prayer — “Meet my need” — is a real and good prayer. We pray for specifics, like when mad men are trying to kill us, or when the youngest child’s eye starts swelling suddenly. David really wants God to intervene in his actual human life and change something. “Meet my need!” That’s not the highest prayer in Psalm 86, though. And this is where our prayers start to grow up into fuller maturity. Let’s start in verse 6:
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me. (verses 6–7)
He’s still asking for help. “Give ear . . . to my prayer” — meet my specific need. What does he say next? This is the second prayer: “Glorify your name.” Here’s how David prays it:
There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like yours.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
For you are great and do wondrous things;
you alone are God. (verses 8–10)
Why would he pray like that? “Lord, I need you to protect me from these bad guys. They’re trying to kill me, and I need you to stop them.” And then he prays, “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name” (verses 8–9). Why does he pray like that? Why would he suddenly go from his particular need that day to the promise that all nations are going to worship this God?
David prays like this because our confidence in asking God to do anything in our lives is rooted in his commitment to do all things for his glory.
God will glorify his name — we see this all throughout the Bible, from beginning to end — and, amazingly, he chooses to glorify himself through showing kindness to us. He pours grace on undeserving people like me: grace to forgive me and save me from hell, grace to change me and empower me to live more like him, and grace to meet my very practical needs — to provide the food I need, and the home I need, and the job I need. God spreads his glory by loving his needy people.
And so, we don’t just pray, “God, deliver me from insolent men because you like to help people.” (He does.) No, we pray, like David, “Meet my need, because meeting my need will show the world what kind of God you are — that you are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; that you never abandon your children; that you own everything in the universe and will spend your infinite riches to care for us; that you have the power and authority to heal any illness and mend any relationship, no matter how hopeless it seems right now. How glorious will you look, God, if you do this! Glorify your name through my need.”
This prayer — for God to glorify his name among all the nations — serves at least two great purposes in trouble. First, it grounds our hope that he might actually do something. He’ll care for us because that’s how he reveals his glory. But second, a prayer like this widens our eyes beyond our immediate need or heartache to remember what God is and will absolutely do in the world. “The nations you have made shall come and worship before you” (verse 9). That’s going to happen, no question — no matter what happens in my little circumstances here. And when that happens, all my little (or big) circumstances will be made right.
“Oh man, things are hard right now — really hard — but I know what you’re doing in the universe. And I know no one can stop you. And when you do it, I won’t have to pray these prayers anymore.” Praying “Glorify your name” gets us out of the ruts of only praying about our needs. You’ve probably been here. I know I have been. Our prayer lives can become almost all about the job, the job, the job; the spouse, the spouse, the spouse; the child, the child, the child; the injury or sickness or weakness or conflict. Praying like David lifts us out of our need to see the bigger picture. God is glorifying his name all over the world, and one day soon all the nations will worship him. That doesn’t mean we don’t pray “Meet my need” prayers; it just puts those prayers into perspective. We pray, “God, meet my need for your glory.”
- Teach Me Your Way
Those aren’t the only two prayers in this psalm, though. When trouble comes to David, he prays, “Meet my need,” “Glorify your name,” and then, third, “Teach me your way.” Verse 11 says,
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.
“Let this trouble, this trial, be an opportunity for you to make me more holy — to refine away more of the remaining sin in my life. More than peace or relief from this trouble, I want greater godliness.” Notice that he says in verse 2, “Preserve my life, for I am godly.” He doesn’t think God is using this trouble mainly to confront him (we see that in other psalms). But even though he believes he’s doing the right things in this case, he wants to be even more like God. “God, use this trouble to sanctify me. Teach me your way, O Lord.”
This is James 1:
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4)
And don’t just teach me to do certain things (and avoid others). No, this prayer is much bolder than that.
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name. (Psalm 86:11)
“I don’t just want you to help me do the right things (and not the bad things). I want you to change me somewhere deeper than my doing. I want you to change me inwardly. I want you to unite my heart toward you. I feel how distracted and divided my heart can be, and I want my whole heart to be united, aligned toward you. And I know that you often change me for the better inwardly through something hard out there.”
Do you think that way when trouble comes? You get bad news of some kind. You feel hostility or opposition of some kind. Do you think, Oh, God’s about to make me more like God? I know I don’t always think that way. I think, I don’t like this. God, why this? Why now? Why this long?
I’ve talked before about a bad leak we had in our kitchen late last summer. Well, that trial isn’t over yet, now more than nine months later. I won’t get into all of it, but it’s been a real trial. I call it a “small-t trial” because we’re praying for some of you who are going through far worse. But it’s been a trial. And in my low moments, I haven’t had a Psalm 86 heart about it. I’ve had a can’t-this-just-be-over attitude. We’ve wrestled with God.
Reading these verses again these last couple weeks, as the back-and-forth with the contractor took another bad turn, was so good for my soul. “O Lord, this is getting worse again; you must be about to make me more like you. Lord, deliver us from bad actors, for we are godly. We’re doing all we can to deal with this in a way that honors you. But we’re not content to be delivered. We want to be sanctified. We want the fire of this trial to burn off more of our sin, and to prove and fortify whatever in us pleases you. Teach us your way, O Lord.”
“And,” at least in this psalm, “we want you to make us more like you in one way in particular.” This brings us to the fourth and final prayer. This one’s the most surprising to me.
- Gladden My Soul
I really want you to see this fourth prayer. We’ll start again in verse 3:
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. (verses 3–4)
Do you pray like this when trouble comes? Not just, “Get me through this” but “God, make me happier in you, even now, even here. Gladden my heart in this darkness, this valley. Give me reasons to rejoice in you, reasons bigger than all the pain and uncertainty I’m experiencing right now.”
I want to have faith like David’s. It was so dark in his life at this moment that he couldn’t see around the corner — he wasn’t sure if he would survive — and yet he could see enough to enjoy God. This reminds me of the Christians in 1 Peter 1, who were being grieved by various trials, and yet Peter writes, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).
All David can see is hostility and deceit and loneliness, and yet his joy doesn’t rest on what he can see. It rests on what he can’t see, because he knows he can’t see the most important things, the most precious things. His treasure is in heaven. His citizenship is in heaven. His hope is in heaven. And so, his valleys, even his darkest valleys, hold a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. The world can’t explain this kind of joy — in David or in you.
And it’s here that we remember that David is not only teaching us to pray here in Psalm 86, but he’s also teaching us to sing. The Psalms were not written merely to be read and recited. No, they were written and memorized to be sung. As we walk through some especially dark psalms, it’s good to be reminded that these are songs. This is worship. Is there anything more Christian than singing through suffering? God is teaching us to bear what we have to bear by lifting our voices in praise — because songs like these say more about reality than our eyes ever could. Our eyes betray us, but the Psalms never betray us.
We always have a reason to sing about who God is for us and what he’s done for us, and that’s where I want to close.
You Have Delivered My Soul
As we prepare to baptize two people now, they’re coming to declare that God has delivered them. He hasn’t delivered them from pain and suffering yet. In fact, they may experience more trouble because they’ve chosen to follow Jesus. Many do experience more trouble. Maybe you have suffered more trouble in your family, your neighborhood, or your workplace because you’re a Christian. Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
These two haven’t been delivered from all trouble, but they have been saved from the worst trouble. And David prays that way right here in Psalm 86:12–13:
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your steadfast love toward me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
“I might die, but I’m not going to die — because you have already delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol, from that awful prison called death. I’m still suffering for now, but you’ve already delivered me.” How much more boldly can we sing this now, in Christ? This is Hebrews 2:14–15:
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
And how did he destroy the one who has the power of death and deliver those who were enslaved to the fear of death? By dying at the hands of insolent men.
And bore it not with groaning but with gladness. “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). In other words, when insolent men came to arrest him, abuse him, and crucify him, the Father gladdened the heart of his servant. He took the cross for you, with joy. And if he could bear that trial with joy in the Father, surely I can bear my small-t trials with greater joy in him.