6 Devotionals on What Our Prayers Are to Include #4: Supplication
When we are praying, what exactly are we doing? Some people pray formally as if they are asking some hierarchy to intervene in their private affairs. Others pray the same prayer over and over and are so repetitive that they really are not praying to God. Others pray as if they are talking to a friend. We need to echo Psalm 143:1, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, Give ear to my supplications! Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness!”
In the above passage, we see the word “supplications,” but what does that mean, and how does it apply to each of us? The word “supplication” comes from a Latin term, “supplicare,” meaning “to plead humbly.” It can also be defined as a form of prayer, a call for help from God. The term bears a spirit of reverence and devotion with it — a solemn prayer to God in which we are making a request or petition for something.
Supplication communicates how we should pray. It is more than just submitting our request to God — it means submitting them with the mindset that we should humble ourselves and become supple before God. We are asking God to make our minds supple. That is, to mold our thinking, our opinions, and our emotions, to be in line with His thinking, opinions, and emotions.
When we pray with supplication, we are asking God to change us into the image of His Son and to mold us into what He wants us to be. When this happens, it helps us grow closer to Christ, and our desires become His desires. When we do this, it changes our opinion of what we want God to do and what we believe is right. We see this in Philippians 4:6: “Be careful about nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God.” This topic of supplication in our prayers is difficult to just limit to a devotional when it could be a 4-part sermon.
When we pray, which we need to do constantly and always, we should not simply bring our wants and our needs before God. We do not simply bring our list of people we are praying for before God. We need to be in the frame of mind that we are bringing our supplications before God. We need to have the mindset that we are before God and that we want His desires and thoughts to be ours. We want to be one with God in all things.
A few scripture passages to help you with your prayers before God:
Psalm 6:9: “The Lord has heard my supplication; The Lord receives my prayer.”
Psalm 119:170: “Let my supplication come before You; Deliver me according to Your Word.”
Psalm 28:6: “Blessed be the Lord, Because He has heard the voice of my supplication.”
1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.”
My prayer and hope with this devotional are that when we pray, we go humbly before God, and that we strive to be like Him; that we are drawn closer to God by knowing He will always hear us and answer according to His will.
Timothy B. Howells Sr.
Info was obtained from the “whatchristianswanttoknow” website.