Psalm 142 is a prayer of David. This is not anything different since the psalms are reflections of the soul to the Lord in seasons of joy and in seasons of great distress or need. In this psalm, however, David is on the brink of being undone. The words he uses illustrates this:
· he cries and pleads to the Lord (v1)
· he pours out his complaint and tells his trouble (v2)
· his spirit is faint (v3)
· he feels lonely and isolated as if none understands or cares (v4)
· he is brought very low (v6a)
· those bringing all this pain are too strong for David (v6b)
· he feels like he is in prison (v7)
· in all of this he pleads for the mercy of the Lord (v1)
It could take hundreds of pages to describe everything listed above and not even that would be sufficient. Yet, I believe that we all can identify with David, even at smaller and lesser intense levels of agony. We have all felt the weight of trouble – be it caused by us or from the hands or lips of another. We know what this feels like.
In reading this psalm something struck me about this prayer specifically with the language of verse 7: “Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name!” That verbiage sounded a lot like the language used in the book of Exodus where the Lord was calling Moses to lead the people out of Egypt for the specific purpose of worshiping Him. Exodus 4:22–23 says, “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ” Then, in Exodus 5:1 we are told, “… ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’ ”
There it is! David’s prayer was an illustration of the work of the Lord during the Exodus. Therefore, we must see every foe, every enemy and every adverse circumstance like Pharoah seeking to keep us stuck in bondage. David helped me to see prayer in a transformative way: Prayer is an exodus! David saw prayer as not simply talking to God but as “the” way out of the pain and sorrow and difficulty he was (and we find ourselves) in. Notice that David describes his situation as singular, not plural (complaint, not complaints; trouble, not troubles, trap, not traps, prison, not prisons). He only describes those who persecute him in the plural. This is very instructive.
David is teaching us that just as deliverance was from Egypt (singular) prayer is deliverance from a specific situation. It is not that we cant pray for or about troubles (plural) but the beauty is that every situation can be prayed about and every situation the Lord will deliver us from, so that we can worship Him. You do not have to wait until life becomes unbearable. The first sign of trouble is the pray (exodus) out of it.
When you are down and or struggling and or feeling anywhere near what David was feeling, you need to pray in such a way that you see prayer as an exodus out of the trouble. David knew about the historical event of the exodus of the people out of Egypt and, because of this, he understands that the same God who delivered them will deliver him. That is why he prayed: prayer was the means of his exodus out of the trouble he was in, yet and chiefly, at the root of his prayer was a longing to engage in unhindered worship of the Lord - to give thanks. This says two things:
1. Troubles always seek to cut and or disturb our worship.
2. Prayer, at its root, is the cry of the soul to be free to worship.
If the people were crying to be free from Egypt simply just to be free, they would soon be back in Egypt (mentally and spiritually: i.e., the golden calf). The purpose of the exodus is to worship, therefore, the purpose of praying to the Lord in our trouble must be that, when we are freed from it, we will worship Him. If not, we will be back on the Egypt (prison) we longed to be out of. Perhaps we know this boomerang experience.
What I long for and what I want to encourage you to do is see prayer differently; to see it as an exodus. Trouble has a way of taking us back to that which we have been freed - the place where worship is troubled, empty and or non-existent. Prayer is the power of your exodus out of the prison you may find yourself in but for the specific purpose of praise and worship of the Lord. The exodus event is a paradigm of salvation: God the Father delivered His people from the bondages of Egypt and God the Son, the Messiah, came to do the same from the bondage and condemning power of sin and so too, now, will the Spirit of the Lord free us from the schemes, designs, and assaults of the enemy on our worship in the form of trouble.
Prayer is God’s continuing gift to live in His exodus power.