Thanksgiving During Crisis

In Psalm 86, “A Prayer of David,” we get an intimate glimpse at a conversation between God and King David. David gives us a beautiful example of how to pray with thanksgiving, our prayer focus for this week.

Psalm 86 is the only Davidic prayer in a section of Psalms that some scholars call the “book of crisis.” But we’ll study it today as a psalm of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in crisis may sound like a contradiction ... but somehow David reconciled petitions for help and gratitude in his prayer, and that means we can too.

In verses 1-7, David asked eight things of God. It’s surprising that David started a prayer of thanksgiving with eight requests of God. But David doesn’t stay in a position of supplication. In verses 8-13, David shifted from petitioning God to praising Him for His power.

At this point in the psalm, David hasn’t explicitly thanked God for anything. Even though the word “thanks” is not used explicitly by David, we can start to see threads of thanksgiving woven through David’s desperate appeal. How so? First, we need to understand something about thankfulness.

Thanksgiving is rooted in looking first at the past and then at the present. We can look at what God has done for us (and for others, like David) while also deciphering His hand in our lives right now.

Twice, David looked at what God had done in the past. In verse 9, he acknowledges “all the nations you have made” and that “you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead” (verse 13).

Because the Lord had previously met David in a personal way, David could confidently thank God for His intimate, steadfast love and for His forgiveness, mercy and faithfulness in this current time of need (Psalm 86:5 and 15).

David also looked at who God is in the present in verse 8, “Among the gods there is none like you, Lord; no deeds can compare with yours”.

Wrapping up his prayer, David offered a sneak peek of his complete trust in God for his deliverance. He also asked for a tangible sign of God’s goodness so his enemies would see it and know God was at work.

David realized his great need for God. He prayed and asked God to guide him with faithful, divine instruction. In doing so, David longed for his heart to be joined with God’s in reverence and honor. Bible commentator David Guzik states that David’s realization, “brought him to say, ‘Don’t give me my way, Lord; teach me Your way.’” And as David lived out that prayer, he became known as a man after God’s heart (1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22).

Respond

Craft a prayer of thanksgiving using Psalm 86 as a guide. What words or phrases can you use in your own prayers? Recall a time in the past when God came to your rescue, and review details of His deliverance in your prayer, letting God’s past faithfulness guide you to thanksgiving.