What I Want

He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.  I will satisfy him with a long life, and show him My salvation. Psalm 91:15-16  NASB

Call upon – “Even personal prayers for our own needs are not necessarily selfish in nature.  God feels the distress of every individual.  Midrash Tanchuma (Acharei) teaches: Every salvation that comes upon even an individual Jew is that of the Holy One, Blessed is He, . . . Israel says . . . ‘If You respond to us, salvation will be Your own.’  If a Jew has in mind when he prays for wealth that God suffers along with him when he finds it hard to pay his bills and clothe his child, then the plea for himself becomes a plea for God Himself, as it were.”[1]

The assumption behind this amazing claim is found in Psalm 91.  If God does in fact agonize over the state of His children, if He declares that He is with us in our troubles, then an answer to prayer, an action of benevolence on our behalf, is also, at the same time, a relief of God’s grief.  If God’s purpose includes our satisfaction, then our requests become the opportunity for God to experience the fulfillment of His desire—to show us His salvation.

Do you pray with this startling insight in mind?  Do you realize that God’s own feelings and purposes are satisfied when He answers?  It’s not just about us, is it?  Prayer is the opportunity we give God to demonstrate His true concern, to magnify His name.  If we withhold our prayers, no matter how “selfish” they may seem to be, we obstruct God’s own desire.  Lofty prayers laced with higher ethical concerns, overflowing in theological jargon, may seem to be sublime applause to the great God of heaven, but praise alone provides no chance for divine relief.  “God, help me,” the blurted cry borne from personal distress, opens the door for God to find His own deliverance from empathy with our plight. “God, help me,” may just be the kind of prayer God needs.

It all begins with qārāʾ, “the enunciation of a specific vocable or message. . . customarily addressed to a specific recipient and is intended to elicit a specific response.”^[2]  In this poem from David, the verb is an imperfect.  That means an incomplete action, an on-going circumstance.  It is, of course, precisely about us.  We will call.  And when we do, God promises an answer.

יִקְרָאֵנִי, וְאֶעֱנֵהוּ   “He will call upon me and I will answer him.”

yiqraeni we’eenehu – the verb qārāʾ followed by the verb ʿānâ.  Perhaps the two most important words in Scripture.

Topical Index: qārāʾ, ʿānâ, call, answer, prayer, Psalm 91:15-16

[1] The Complete ArtScroll Siddur (Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1985) p. XVII.

^[2] Coppes, L. J. (1999). 2063 קָרָא. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 810). Chicago: Moody Press.