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Psalm 143:7&8 - A song about prayer - Day 189

Dear Friends,

I exhort you to meditate on a portion of the passages you read each day.  I was truly blessed and encouraged by meditating on these two verses.  I hope you are finding the Word to be more and more sweet.

Blessings

Jeff

My soul thirsts for You (v6) is generally taken as the theme.  From what I know of Hebrew poetry the middle is usually the theme.  For you English majors, the first sentence in the paragraph is supposed to give the purpose or theme.  But poetry is quite different.

Like all psalms, there are divisions within the psalm.  These are songs after all, not prose.  Songs have stanzas, prose has paragraphs.

So this is the fourth of 6 stanzas..

Observations (what does it say)

Sense of urgency - answer quickly, hide not, let me hear in morning, make me know.

Dependence - spirit fails, going to the pit, 

Confidence - in you I trust, I lift up my soul

What is the petition/request - steadfast love and way I should go.

How does it fit with rest of psalm?

For a person who thirsts for the Lord, urgency, dependence, confidence in request for steadfast love and direction make absolute sense.

How does it apply?

You may know that my two initial sermons last year were on the topic of prayer.  These two verses are really a sermon about prayer in themselves.  God's inspired prayer book shows us how we should pray and what is our most important need.

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