Prayers We Need To Pray

    With my whole heart have I sought you: O let me not wander from your commandments. (Ps. 119:10)
                                  Pslam 119:9-16
   
     It is altogether appropriate for us to say "Amen" when we hear the prayers of others and those prayers express the deep desires of our heart. The Hebrew word "amen" means " let it be so." It is an affirmation of concurrance and agreement. Each of us can participate more meaningfully and more profitably in the public prayers spoken by others if we listen intently and appropriately say "amen."
     With great benefits coming to us, we can study the written prayers of others. Often they verbalize the prayers that we would like to utter, and we can then say "amen " as we read written prayers.
    Psalm 119 is an artistic record of the psalmist's devotions and dialogues with God. The psalm contains many prayers that we could profitably pray as our very own prayers.
    Lets take a look at the second of 22 stanzas in this acrostic poem. It contains some prayers that each of us needs to pray.

     1. "Let me not wander from your commandments."
      The psalmist recognized the human tendency to wander away from the proper path and offered a prayer that he might be saved from a life of aimless wandering. Why does man wander away from God's truth?
     A. Perhaps because of our fallen nature.
     B. Perhaps it's because we are forgetful.
     C. Many of us are preoccupied with other things, and we find it easy to drift.
     D. We can be tempted by the promises and possibilities of what the world has to offer.
     E. Some of us wander because of weariness. The psalmist prays that God will so work in his life that he will be saved from straying from God's precious commandments.

     2. "Teach me your statutes." (v12)
     Throughout this longest psalm in the Bible, we hear the psalmist repeating the petition, "Teach me your statutes." each of us should repeat this prayer and mean it with all our heart.
     In this petition the psalmist is saying, "I want what God wants." God's grace had worked within the innermost being of this man to cause him to want to follow God's statutes.
     We need to remember that our Savior was thought of as the great teacher ( Matt. 5:1-2; 7:28-29). Only as we understand the teachings of God through Jesus Christ can we truely walk in His ways and do the things He wants us to do.

     3. Putting feet on our prayers.
     For prayer to be meaningful and productive, we must do more than just talk to Father God. We must cooperate with Him as He works to bring about the fullfillment of the desires we have expressed in the prayer we have offered.
     A. We can keep our lives pure by bringing our thoughts and actions under the searching light of God's word.( Ps. 119:9)
     B. We can avoid a life of sin by storing up God's word in our hearts that it might serve as both a restraint and as a challenge (v11)
     C. We can verbalize the great truths and the great insights that come to us from God's word in our conversations with others (v13).

     In order to pray effectively, we need to delight ourselves in God's precepts, His ways, His statutes (vv 14-16).
     Devotional Bible study can be the listening side of prayer. God will speak to our needs through His Word if we study it with trust and with a willingness to be obedient.