Psalm 70:1

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

This evening’s Bible passage is Psalm 70:1 (KJV): “Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord.”

The Book of Common Prayer has adapted this verse from the Psalms to serve as a corporate prayer three times a day, at Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and late-night Compline:

“O God, make speed to save us.

O Lord, make haste to help us.”

I’ve sometimes wondered, when faced with this prayer on the page, if it isn’t a little presumptuous to be telling God to hurry up, to get a move on. After all, God’s God and I’m not and who am I to imply that the creator of the universe is moving too slowly?

The COVID-19 crisis has helped me to see this prayer in a different light. Let’s be honest with God. We’d all love the crisis to be over much sooner than we fear. Why not share this desire with God? God both welcomes and answers prayer, doesn’t he?

So, these words have become part of my daily walking-around and while-doing-other-things repeated prayer. A kind of Christian mantra, I suppose: “O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.”

Yes, I know that patience is an important part of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and that we’re called to be patient at all times, especially when things aren’t going our way. But the Bible doesn’t seem to see any contradiction between patience and prayer. Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Rom. 12:12). Even while we’re being “patient in tribulation,” we are also to be “constant in prayer” (and part of that prayer would surely be for a speedy delivery from the tribulation), and we are to “rejoice in hope.”

And, lest we still think we might be overstepping our creaturely bounds by asking God to hurry, the psalmist repeats his request in the closing verse (5) of the psalm: “But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying” (KJV). You can also find similar words in Psalm 31:2, 38:22, and 40:17.

Would you join me in praying the words from the Book of Common Prayer several times a day? We won’t be the first to do so. Christians, trusting in the example of this psalm and in the goodness of our God, have joined in this simple prayer from the very early days of the church: “O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.”

Grace and peace,

Max