Give ear to my words, O Lord,
consider my sighing.
Psalm 5:1
“It is certain that the greater part of men, as they babble out vain, languid, and inefficacious prayers, most unworthy the ear of the blessed God, so they seem in some degree to set a just estimate upon them, neither hoping for any success from them, nor indeed seeming to be at all solicitous about it, but committing them to the mind as vain words, which in truth they are. But far be it from a wise and pious man, that he should so foolishly and coldly trifle in so serious an affair; his prayer has a certain tendency and scope, at which he aims with assiduous and repeated desires, and doth not only pray that he may pray, but that he may obtain an answer; and as he firmly believes that it may be obtained, so he firmly, and constantly, and eagerly urges his petition, that he may not flatter himself with an empty hope.”
Robert Leighton, D.D.(1611-1684)
The Treasury of David Classic Reflections on the Wisdom of the Psalms
by Charles H Spurgeon page 49.
Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
Morning by morning, O Lord, you hear my voice;
morning by morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation.
Psalm 5:2-3
“If you do not believe, why do you pray? And if you believe, why do you not expect? By praying you seem to depend on God; by not expecting, you again renounce your confidence. What is this, but to take his name in vain? O Christian, stand to your prayer in a holy expectation of what you have begged upon the credit of promise…. Mordecai, no doubt, had put up many prayers for Esther, and therefore he waits at the king’s gate, looking what answer God would in his providence give thereunto.
Do thou likewise.”
William Gurnall (1616-1679)
The Treasury of David Classic Reflections on the Wisdom of the Psalms
by Charles H Spurgeon page 51.