Pitfalls & Lessons (Recitation Pt 2)

No matter how many words you recite, you haven’t really prayed until you have spoken to God. That’s the lesson I learned when I first tried reciting prayers.

The Bible speaks of praying continually but that is never really our goal, even if it is a worthy standard. God himself is always our goal, but he can sometimes be obscured by our spiritual disciplines. As a result, there are pitfalls when it comes to reciting prayers, and it’s those I’d like to explore in Part 2 of this series. But stick around, because there are some helpful tools to be discovered in this installment on recitation.

Psalm 70:1

The first time I ever tried to recite a prayer, it was Psalm 70:1. I discovered it while doing an independent study in college on contemplative prayer. According to ancient sources, this may have been one of the first simple prayers that ancient monks recited to try and “pray without ceasing” (1Thes 5:17). Paul may have spoken of ceaseless prayer as hyperbole, but those first monks took him literally. They wanted every single moment of their day to be a moment of prayer, and they recited this verse to help them get there. This is my story of trying to follow in their footsteps.

It's easy to see why they landed on this verse in particular. It is a cry to God from a needy heart and represents one of the most basic forms of prayer.

Make haste, O God, to deliver me!

O Lord, make haste to help me!

One of those ancient monks, John Cassian, proposed repeating this phrase over and over to achieve "perpetual awareness of God." He went on to show just how versatile Psalm 70:1 could be. This prayer can comfort us in our fear and anxiety because it cries to God for a saving remedy. At the same time, Cassian said that the prayer is a warning against pride, since it admits our need for deliverance. He thought of it as the perfect prayer: it is heartening for those downcast and humbling for those puffed up.

I was taken with Cassian's description of the prayer and the ancient monks who used it, so I threw myself into reciting it with all the vigor and foolishness of a guy in his early twenties. Eventually I got to the point where I was trying to pray Psalm 70:1 with every waking breath. There were plenty of nights when I woke up in the middle of the night and I could tell that I had also been reciting the prayer in my sleep.

But far from relieving my anxiety, Psa 70:1 just became the soundtrack for it. My nerves were shattered by the nonstop mental noise of constantly repeating a prayer, not to mention the pressure of having to remember to pray it. I don't know how long that season lasted, but I don't consider it a healthy time of life.

My foray into continual prayer, however, wasn’t a complete disaster. I learned some valuable lessons that are with me still. First among those lessons was that prayer is not prayer unless you are actively talking to God. Truth be told, I hardly ever really prayed during that spiritual project. I recited words but I didn’t speak with God. Maybe I thought I would “be heard for my many words” (Matt 6:7). In Part 1, I mentioned that reciting prayers was not a tool we use just to turn off our brains, but certainly I proved you can do that if you try. Empty words are empty words, no matter how many times you say them.

Second, I realized that Psalm 70:1 is one-dimensional, and my spirituality reflected that. I had made that verse the sole diet of my spiritual life so I could see how insufficient it could be. If all you ever do is cry out to God for deliverance, then you only ever think about yourself. I used that prayer to obsess about my feelings, my needs, my fears, my sins, etc. Modern believers need to delivered from ourselves, not drawn deeper in. We are already hyper-focussed on ourselves and we hardly need any encouragement. There is a place for introspection, of course, but salvation comes from the outside—a place we seldom look. (Salvation from the outside is actually the point of Psalm 70:1, but I instinctively make most things about myself.)

Lastly, this was probably the first time I saw just how much a spiritual endeavor could be filled with fleshly intentions. I constantly repeated this prayer because I wanted an experience. I wanted an achievement. I wanted to redraw the lines on what it meant to be a serious and observant believer. I had long since quit talking to God while repeating the verse, and there was no gospel in what I was doing. It wasn’t the repetition that was the problem—it was my heart.

Psalm 70:1 & Intercession

With so much baggage attached to Psalm 70:1, it's a small wonder that it has once again become an important feature of my spiritual life. Now that I'm a bit more mature and a whole lot more healthy, I have been able to come back to that little prayer. I no longer recite it with every waking breath, but I have discovered that I can recite it when I pray for others. Nowadays, Psalm 70:1 is how I talk to God about the needs of people in my life.

Make haste, O God, to deliver John Doe!

O Lord, make haste to help him!

You have your prayer list, or maybe someone randomly asks you to pray for them; what better way than to recite this simple prayer? No matter how well you know that person, this prayer is sufficient. Of course, there are times I elaborate, but that is usually because I need to process things with God. For the most part, neither God nor others need me to say all that much. God knows what they need long before I ask (Matt 6:8).

The truth is, even if I have lots to say, I’m not sure I can do much better than Psalm 70:1. Isn’t that what our friends and loved ones need most? They need God to come quickly to deliver them, to help them. I often recite these words while thinking about the specifics that burden my heart, but limiting myself to this verse actually reminds me that I’m not in charge—God is. Too often our prayers come across as us being a board of directors who direct God as to how he should act. Psalm 70:1 leaves all that up to God. The one thing we know he must do is deliver and help those we love. Without that, they are lost. So maybe John Cassian was right after all. Maybe Psalm 70:1 actually is the perfect prayer!

In Part 1 of this series, I wrote about the things of heaven. We considered the creatures who pray while encircling the throne of God. Their prayers are saturated with God's glory. As wonderful as that is, we still deal with the stuff on this earth. We need deliverance. We need help. We need it soon. Psalm 70:1 is the counterweight to Revelation 4:8.

Back when I prayed Psalm 70:1 all the time, the verse starved me of the things of heaven. I was problem-obsessed and earthly-oriented, and I needed a more heavenly perspective. But when it comes to dealing with the problems of this earth, I don't know that we can do much better.

When my heart is burdened with need, Psalm 70:1 is my guide. Sometimes I simply plug in someone’s name and other times I add to it. Here is an example using my daughter, who will spend this summer in Kathmandu. I'm not sure she needs more than Psalm 70:1, but I need to pray more for my own peace of mind.

Make haste, O God, to deliver my daughter!

O Lord, make haste to help her!

Make haste, O God, to keep her safe!

O Lord, make haste to help her!

Make haste, O God, to bring her Christian a fellowship!

O Lord make haste to help her!

As with any spiritual discipline, there are lots of ways to misuse recited prayers. Sometimes our greatest temptation isn’t to stop our spiritual practice, but rather to take God completely out of it. I did that with continual prayer. I have not given up my dream of seeking the Lord’s presence continually (Psa 105:4), I just know that it will be a process of growing in love and dependence and not because of some verbal gimmick.

Next Time

In Part 3 of this series we will take a look at the Jesus Prayer, which has been one of the most recited prayers throughout the history of the church. It isn't a magic formula, but it is a nice combination of Revelation 4: 8 and Psalm 70:1.