May 31

“And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.” Exodus 34:8

Moses first worships, then he prays. He first acknowledges the rightness of God’s ways, and then he seeks God’s grace. Unlike us, he does not at once beseech God, on the ground of his grace, to reverse his decision.

We are always trying to persuade God to change his way of working. Without considering his ways, we just open our lips and ask him to remove the pressure here, the sickness there, the domestic problems elsewhere. To pray after this fashion is not to worship God.

We have lost sight of our place before God. We are making ourselves too big. Moses was not like that. Before he prayed, he first acknowledged God’s sovereignty and, with bowed head, accepted his ways. Thereafter he prayed that if he had found grace in God’s sight, God would still go up in the midst of his people.

The acceptance of God’s ways does not rule out prayer nor eliminate grace. But there is an order here: we first capitulate to God, then we pray to him. Prayer may be the expression of my will; worship precedes it, and is the acceptance of the will of God.