December 2

“Let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee.” Psalm 141:2

True prayer comes from the desire of the heart, not from the imagination of the mind. It arises from a deep inner longing for the will of God. For this reason, the psalmist asked that his prayer might be offered to God as incense. All Old Testament incense came from the frankincense trees. To obtain it, successive incisions were made in the bark, and the tree then oozed a white resin from which the incense was manufactured. Hence prayer is not the offering of just anything that might be at hand; it is the presenting of something drawn painfully out of the innermost heart, as though it seeped from our very wounds.

How different is this from the easygoing prayers that we sometimes offer—prayers good to listen to, but all too empty of content! God answers these too, but let us remember well that our prayers are for God to hear, not for pleasing the ears of our fellow Christians. And God looks on the heart.