Pray as Slaves

“Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us.”

Psalm 123:2

I confess that sometimes when I pray I can forget my place. Embarrassingly, I come to God to give Him a little advice. I’m not sure He fully understands the situation down on the ground, so I need to let Him know what’s going on and give Him a slight corrective. Because if He knew what I knew, then He’d surely handle things a little differently. When I pray like this, I reveal something about my posture toward God. I’m coming to Him as master, when really, I should be coming to Him as a slave.

When we come to God pushing our own agenda, we disagree with God about who is and who we are. God is the only wise One (Rom 16:27), and His understanding is beyond measure (Psalm 147:5). God is the sovereign One, ruling as He wishes in heaven and on earth (Dan 4:35). God is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and His dominion has no end (1 Tim 6:15). We, on the other hand, are weak and ungodly (Rom 5:6), and our understanding is limited (Job 38:2). We are creatures, clay in the hand of the Creator (Rom 9:21), unable to do any good thing apart from Him (John 15:5). And yet, in Christ, He gives us bold access to His throne to obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our weakness (Heb 4:16). How then should we come to His gracious throne?

We should come as slaves. We pray, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). We confess that we are coming as slaves looking to the hand of our master. We have nothing to bring: No wisdom, no power, no agenda. We exist for Him, and we pray like it. We pray with His words, asking for things that line up with His will, in order that we may be useful for His purposes, to the praise of His glory. We come humble and contrite and trembling, yet with unspeakable joy and purpose. Surely, we can, and should, bring our personal petitions before God (Phil 4:6), but we are not like the pagans who think that He exists for us. We are His slaves, He is our master, and our prayers prove it.

Brothers and sisters, let our prayers be delivered on bended knees and not with pointed fingers. We are not wise enough, strong enough, or important enough to direct God in how to order His affairs. Let us be reminded of our lowly and blessed position as slaves of the Most High as we pray. Let us pray with His will and His glory as our singular purpose, “till He has mercy upon us.”

Jacob Crouch 2023