Have you ever felt a little selfish when you asked for something, especially from a stranger? For me, once in a while there is a certain location in my stomach that gets a little knotted when I ask people to help me with something, especially if it's a bigger favor. I think that part of it may be pride telling me that I shouldn't ask for help. I think the other part is me not wanting to ask too much of someone, as if I don't deserve their help. So sometimes I don't ask because of pride, and sometimes I don't ask because I don't feel I deserve it. I get the distinct feeling that there are many times where we take either one of those stances with God. We pray to him and either pretend we don't need anything or demand things from him like a spoilt child, as if we could trick our Lord; God knows our hearts. This verse in James boldly defeats a lot of people's complaints that God is not blessing them: "You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure." (James 4:2-3). Please keep this thought in mind throughout this post (and for the rest of your life) so you can gain the right perspective on prayer.

Ok, so now that we've established how not to ask for blessing, how do we ask for blessing in a biblical way? I always feel that it's better to let the scripture tell us what to do and believe, so here's a scripture for you:  "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us,..." (Psalm 67:1). Now, I don't know about you, but when I read that, I feel an immediate rush of excitement at the Psalmist's words. He is coming boldly before God with a pure heart and saying "may God bless us!" without reservation or arrogance. I think the key reason why this prayer to God is so powerful is that it spoken by a man who genuinely seeks God. As C.S. Lewis put it so well in Mere Christianity: "God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing."

If you've read a few Psalms, you've probably run into the word "Selah". On the surface, this word is a musical term similar to the one we use now as a musical break and probably was a great point for a hardcore lyre or harp solo. However, the word goes a bit deeper than that, as many Hebrew words do. The word is also used to instruct a person to mediate on a certain thought instead of just skipping on to the next one. It has also been translated as a word similar to "weigh something". I believe that Selah was placed directly after verse 1 to instruct us to really ponder it and let the thought sink deeply into our mind. Let's all do that now before moving onto the next paragraph.

Ok! Now let's look at verses 2 and 3 in this Psalm: "...that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!" Do you see that dramatic flip in the thought process happening here? If you really pay attention to it, it kind of throws you a little bit. The Psalmist goes from "bless us and make your face shine upon us" to "let your glory be shown in all the Earth!" Why did the Psalmist do that? Why didn't he just make this Psalm a whole prayer about God taking care of us?

I believe that the pairing of these two thoughts is not accidental. I believe what many other Christian writers believed before me: Our blessing is God's glory. That simple thought will radically alter your thinking if you soak on it (this is a good Selah moment!). God is glorified in us when his favor and love shine upon us and then through us to others. This post is already pretty long, and there is no short way of describing how this whole thing works. Feel free to comment if you have any questions and I'll try to address them in another post.

For now, I challenge you to ask in faith, believing that he will bless us and that our blessing will open people's eyes to the glory of God! Let the whole world praise him!