Prayer Principles from Psalm 41

This passage has been on my heart a lot this season. 

Psa 41:1-3 (NKJV) Blessed is he who considers the poor;
The LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.
The LORD will preserve him and keep him alive, and he will be blessed on the earth;
You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.
The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.

Notice that God promises deliverance from times of trouble. Which means that there will be troubles, even in the life of the generous. Notice also that it also implies that generous people are not immune to sickness, and that they will have enemies.

Psa 41:4-6 (NIV) - I said, “O LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
My enemies say of me in malice, "When will he die and his name perish?”
Whenever one comes to see me, he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander; then he goes out and spreads it abroad.

In this case, David has fallen into severe illness. And he knows it is the consequence of his sin (vs 4). Pay attention: David does not ignore the sickness or pretend it's not his fault. He also did not think God ought to ignore his sin just because of the good he has done before. He understands God too well for that!


I know some generous people who don't take their own sin seriously, and they are taken aback, caught off-guard and offended when they reap the harvest from their sin. And they start raging against God. It’s actually quite common; there are some people who head charities, for example, and have terrible tempers, or commit adultery or embezzle funds. I suspect they feel, deep in their hearts, that their good works gives them some room to sin...


Make sure you don't fall into that deception!

Psa 41:7-9 (NIV) All my enemies whisper together against me; they imagine the worst for me, saying,
“A vile disease has beset him; he will never get up from the place where he lies.”
Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

We don't see in the Bible any account of David falling sick, so it's hard to tie this psalm to a specific incident in David's life. The closest guess, in my opinion, is that this psalm refers to the time David committed adultery with Bathsheba, which eventually led to Absalom's rebellion and Ahithophel's betrayal (2 Sam 11, 13-16).


Remember that as David’s trusted counsellor, Ahithophel not only had the ear of the king, he also knew his heart. If any man would know how David would think and act, it was Ahithophel. Ahithophel thus would be the person most capable of plotting David’s downfall, since he knew David inside-out.


And if someone who knew him inside-out could not only reject him but actively work towards his defeat, it was a rejection of everything that David stood for. He must have been thinking “If someone who knows my heart so deeply could betray me, what does that say about my heart?” It's enough to crush a man's spirit!

Pro 18:14 (NIV) - A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?

It takes faith to rise up above this. It takes faith in order to know God still loves us in spite of our sins and in spite of our failings. Hear the prayer of a man who pleases God's heart -

Psalm 41:10-12 (NIV) - But you, O LORD, have mercy on me; raise me up, that I may repay them. I know that you are pleased with me, for my enemy does not triumph over me. In my integrity you uphold me and set me in your presence forever.

Personally, I feel uncomfortable with this part. David prayed that God would let him avenge himself on his enemies. One thing I noticed, however, is that God kept David from doing so. Whether we are talking about Saul, who sought to kill David in the earlier days, or Ahithophel, or even Absalom, David never had to raise his hand against his enemies. God eventually took care of those enemies, and kept David from avenging himself on them.


The point, however, seems to be that because David loved God, David could pray what he wanted. God would still decide what was best and settle matters accordingly.


And that's what I want to share with you also. Just pray, pouring out your heart to God honestly, and let God decide how he wants to handle the matter.


Also, begin with remembering the promises of God.


If we had stopped at the end of verse 3, we would have thought this was a feel-good, sunshine-and-roses kind of Psalm. It’s when we look at verse 4 onwards that we realize that David wrote this in the midst of severe trial and testing. He was commanding his soul to feed on the promises of God.


We likewise ought to do the same. When we are in the midst of a difficult season, we need to discipline ourselves to not only to pray, but to pray remembering the promises of God. We see the same principle in the following passage:

Lamentations 3:19-26 (NIV) - I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Notice how the writer of Lamentations has to consciously remember the goodness of God even in the midst of grief? If we want to have a confident and enjoyable prayer life, we need to do the same.


Conclusion:


Our worship lives will not rise above our prayer lives. That is why we need to not only pray, but pray in ways that please God. The LORD chose to have this psalm preserved for us in Scripture so that it may encourage and strengthen us in the LORD. I hope my sharing has helped to spur you on and make your prayer life more like how God wants it to be!

Sharing Some Music

Hi, everyone!

This is rather different. Instead of worship-related material, I'd like to share some music I did recently.

The first is my own variations on a chorus. The original came from a Chinese song written by the Singaporean singer/songwriter Stephanie Sun. The original is like this:

My chorus and variations goes like this:

I also did a cover version of Girl From Ipanema, a famous bossanova standard. It was interesting, I didn't try out all the auto-accompaniment before I did the recording, so some of it caught me by surprise.

Anyway, these were done just for the fun of it. No teaching points included, so if that's what you were looking for, sorry to disappoint you! If you enjoyed the videos of my playing, please click over to those video pages (click on those videos) and leave a comment on them. Thanks!

Lesson from 1 Corinthians 14

A few Sundays back, one of the church leaders spoke to me after the service. He told me “I just want to tell you that you minister on the piano, really minister. Not just today, but every time…”

And that really encouraged me a lot.

Before you get me wrong, I am not one of those high-maintenance musicians, who need to be affirmed and encouraged every week. In fact, one pastor I serve with mentioned that I am very low-maintenance, and he’s glad for that. There are two reasons why I am low-maintenance: 1) I enjoy serving in the worship ministry, so I am self-motivated; 2) I am very confident of what I am doing, so I am self-directed most of the time.

But sometimes I go out on a limb and decide to try stuff out of nowhere. For example, that particular Sunday we used the song Dance with Me, by Jesus Culture. At one point the worship leader did not indicate which part of the song to do next. On the spur of the moment I turned up the keyboard volume and played the melody of the chorus. Because my church worship band is really a dream team, the whole team went that way too, and it all sounded prepared and rehearsed.

It wasn’t.

And later the worship leader directed me to just linger after a song and give the congregation room to sing their own songs unto the Lord. Err… I immediately launched off into one of my trusty chord progressions, Bm7 – C#m7 – D – E (we were in the key of F# minor), and stayed there until the worship leader went into the next song (which was in the key of A major). Again unrehearsed and unprepared, but it all worked out ok, at least to me.

1 Cor 14:29 (NKJV) - Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.

So to have that church leader approach me and affirm me after the service meant a lot to me.

Acts 2:18 (NKJV) - And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.

This passage tells me that the New Testament church is to be characterized by prophecy (we can argue what prophecy means some other time). But if you want to prophesy you have to be willing to let your prophecies be judged by the rest of your local body of Christ, as instructed in 1 Corinthians 14:29.

So I take the same principle and apply it to my playing. I have to be open to having it judged by the body of Christ, especially my church leaders. Now, it isn’t practical for me to go around making a nuisance of myself and bugging the worship leaders and my pastor for feedback after EVERY service. But 1 Cor 14:29 does mean that I do have to be open to feedback on my work and ministry unto the LORD.

So what does it mean for you?

Two things:

1) Be willing to submit to judgment.

It’s unrealistic to believe that diligently seeking God's guidance will mean that you will make no mistake or have everyone approve of your decisions. And if that worries you, you are operating from fear rather than faith.

All it takes is humility, being willing to accept feedback and maybe realize that sometimes we don't hear God as clearly as we'd like. Exercise humility and teachability when you're serving God with other people. It's less pressurizing in the long run...

2) Be gentle and generous with your feedback.

If someone went out on a limb, either in the worship ministry or some other way, be quick to affirm the good in it. How about problems or mistakes? Personally I would not mention the problems or mistakes unless I have a relationship with that person (he/she trusts me) or if I am in a leadership position in that group.

Why? Because of my manner. I can come across as strict and harsh in person, so I have to be extra careful to be gentle, to not crush someone's spirit.

Isaiah 42:3 (NIV) - A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

Watch out for that too, if you are in a leadership position. There will be times when you will have to call someone out on his or her mistakes or defiance, especially if the culture in that group has gone haywire. But hopefully that is not going to be common in the church or fellowship you serve at!


Conclusion:

We love God by serving his people (Heb 6:10) and we become effective only when we work together with others and let them sharpen us (Pro 27:17). So be open to the feedback and advice from others, and also remember to exhort and encourage one another, especially when they go out on a limb to serve God!