Have you ever heard this?
P raise
R epent
A sk
Y ield
Many people have told me that this is the formula that Christ gave us in the Lord's Prayer and is also similar to the format that David and other Psalms writers tended to follow. I've also heard that if you don't end your prayer with praise, then you haven't prayed. While I think guidelines can be nice, and while I think that there is a lot to be said for these observations . . . The more Scripture I read, and the more I mull it over, the more I have problems with them.
The idea that "most Psalms ending with praise must mean we have to praise God" is intrinsically self-serving. Why? Follow this train of thought and see if you've been here before: We forget to praise God or don't praise Him enough after we've told Him all our stuff; so then we feel like we did something wrong; and so we are just reinforcing what a dirty rotten sinner we really are; this leads to intense feelings of guilt which result in us having to pray all over again and repent of being the dirty rotten sinner that we are; and then we try to think of more praising things we can say so we can pacify Him; but then we have to ask for forgiveness from thinking that we had to pacify Him--because that means we think He is shallow--meanwhile, we are wondering if our prayers are being heard as much as Mr. Smith's over there; or else we are so sure that our prayers are being heard that we become happy in our success; but then we have to apologize for being prideful; and then we have to think of more praising words; and then we have to think of how we can yield to God today; and on and on it goes. Such a headache.
So let's get rid of all that crap. I believe that prayer is more like this: when we call out to God, He hears us, He changes us, and the Holy Spirit automatically causes praise to fall from our lips. Simple as that. We just naturally, organically end up yielding. That's why the Psalms are there in the first place, not to give us guidelines, but rather to observe how the Holy Spirit changed someone else's heart. It's like we can see this change right before our eyes and we can rejoice in the present for something God did in the past to a sinful individual just like us! Therefore, we organically desire the same thing! And of course those Psalms are necessary, because if those prayers weren't there, we wouldn't even know that prayer was possible, or--on a more immediate note--that it did any good!
We don't have to spend any time worrying about praying correctly, or praying the right words, because Romans tells us that the Holy Spirit does all that stuff. There is really no pressure. There is really no point in thinking, "What would God like to hear from me?" That is a man-made question. There is no point in trying to figure out the guidelines for prayer, because guidelines imply that we have some control in the actual direction.
Does that make sense? I've heard soooo many times when a pastor will look at a Psalm and go, "See? David knew the importance of praising his Creator!" I think that's totally backwards. Jeremiah tells us that the human soul is desparately wicked, and that it's only by God's grace through the Holy Spirit that anyone even realizes how awesome God is. David didn't realize the importance of praise. He simply called out to God, God changed his heart, and as a result David naturally turned into a beacon of praise.
When people "realize the importance of praise"...Let's be honest, doesn't that just really give them a reason to feel good about themselves? That addition of pride into prayer adds soooo much frustration into something that should really be all about God--plain and simple.
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