Over to God
“Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation” (verses 14-16).
Prayer is a dialogue. When the voice of God echoes back in prayer, then we know that this dialogue has taken its full shape, in other words the prayer is complete. Psalm 91 contains all the significant parts of a complete prayer. It begins with a kind of glorification of the Almighty; the words that attribute all powers to God who is the refuge of those who dwell in his secret place. It submits us to deliverance from the physical and spiritual encumbrance of life, which is similar to our plea for deliverance from our sins; forgiveness we ask at the beginning of prayer asking God to heal our lives of all our failures which form encumbrances before God. The prayer addresses our petitions too in very unequivocal language driving us even closer to the reality that God actually takes the first initiative of our encounters with Him. At the end it prophesises the reign of God in the present and future lives of His faithful.
These aspects of complete prayer are summarized in verse 14. The love for the most high paves way for solemn connectivity with the divine. Love is the greatest of all the commandments; no wonder Jesus tells us that loving God above all things is the best way to please God. This love possesses the full commitment to the worship of the only One God, no other God. Therefore the attention in times of need as well as in less troubled moments of life must be focused on Him alone as the only one, in that case, zero tolerance to other gods or dependence on soothsayers. The vertical is accomplished by the vertical dimension of love which demands us to love one another (Jn. 13:34)
We notice another use of personal pronouns here as seen at the opening verses of the Psalm. Exactly like at the beginning, both the subject and the object of the sentences take the same form. This grammatical structure further points to the depth of God’s care for every individual. Praying in these words ought to deepen the trust we have on God as our personal God, Father and Saviour. One needs not hide under the crowd but at every point sustain the personal link with the Almighty God.
Therefore, I will deliver him, I will set him on high, because he has known my name. Not only do we distinguish the Almighty through His ubiquitous nature, he has manifested Himself also as one who answers at every point in time. The story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal for example show a God who answers at all times as different from the gods whose potency and rate of response to the needy are extremely limited (1 Kings 18:20-40).
What our Lord emphasized in His teaching of Sermon on the Mount was long before hand declared on the passage: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him”. This reassures our choice to pray in times of need bearing in mind the loud assurance, I will answer! The God Almighty determines to provide what our prayers seek. Three definite words; honour, long life and Salvation express more than words could encapsulate.
God honours his children with blessings. Blessings of God is more or less understood as uplifting of one’s status in life or quality of life. Does one who pray in these words still need to go elsewhere to ask for God’s blessings?