I pray to you, O Lord, my rock.
Do not turn a deaf ear to me.
For if you are silent, I might as well give up and die.
(Psalm 28:1, NLT)

Really?
That’s quite the audacious prayer.

Who is this?
Who can talk to God like that?

David prayed it?
How did he earn the right to make demands of God?
To threaten Him?

He was what, a shepherd boy?
Youngest in the family.
Not much going for him.

Oh, sure, God chose him.
Is that it?
Because he was chosen to be king, he could be so bold?

So he became king.
Is that why he felt he had some special status?

But didn’t he try to do things his own way?
Didn’t he try to take the throne before God was ready for him to have it?

Oh. And wasn’t he the one who had eyes for a married woman?
Even arranged for the death of her husband to cover his affair?

I hear there were also other family problems.
That David’s kids had some issues.
His own son even tried to kill him and take his throne.

And here he is telling God He better listen.
Or what?
He’d give up and die?
What is God supposed to do with that?

So what makes David think, with his humble beginnings, his mistakes along the way, his whoppers of sin, that he can step right up to God and say, “Listen to me”?

There must be something.

Could it be, David understood a deeper truth?
That he was on to something?

Might it be something we can understand too?
About God.
That God loved David.
And David loved God.

And God loves us.  With a great love.  So much so, He calls us His children (1 John 3:1).
And we can love Him.

And like David, we have been chosen in Christ (Ephesians 1:4 and 1 Peter 2:9).

And yes, like David, we have made mistakes and sinned in some ugly ways, but we are also forgiven (1 John 1:9 and 2:12).

So, can we like David, be bold before God?

Definitely.

In Ephesians “because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.”  (Ephesians 3:12, NLT)

and again in Corinthians, “such confidence we have through Christ before God.”
(2 Corinthians 3:4, NIV)

and in Hebrews, we are told to “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
(Hebrews 4:16, NLT)

It is Christ who gains us access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18), to His grace (Romans 5:2) and into the very throne room of God (Hebrews 10:19).  In Him, we have this confidence.

When we need grace, when we have requests and burdens, when we’ve made a mess of things, even when we’ve fallen into sin, again, we can confidently go to our Father who loves us.

Jesus gave us a bold model to follow:
Prayer
Daddy in Heaven, Your name stands above all others. Set everything right. Do what’s best here, like you do up there. Give me what I need to live today. Forgive me. Because I forgive them. And keep me safe from the enemy’s plots. (Matthew 6:9-13, my rendering)

Grace & Peace