Then Jehoshaphat stood up and said …”O LORD God … we have no power to face this mighty army.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:5, 12).

Ever feel at a loss for words when it comes to prayer?  The Bible is chock full of prayers: every Psalm is a kind of prayer, so there’s 150 of them.  The Lord’s Prayer. The prayers that Paul prayed for the churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica and the rest.  The prayers of the early church throughout the book of Acts. The prayers of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, of David, and Solomon (and Jehoshaphat!), of Isaiah and Daniel, Sarah and Esther, Mary and Elizabeth.

If your prayer words are running dry, we have some deep wells to draw from.  

Facing crisis, King Jehoshaphat prays.  It’s a good one. It’s not the only way to pray, but it is a wonderful model of prayer. Let’s drop a bucket into this particular well of prayer (2 Chronicles 20:5-13).

His prayer is not rooted in his desires, feelings or circumstances; his prayer is grounded in God, anchored in who God has shown himself to be:  “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven?  You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations … no one can withstand you” (verse 6).

His prayer is grounded in the history of God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises to his people: “God of our fathers … did you not give this land forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend” (verses 6 and 7). 

His prayer is grounded in the confidence that God is present and paying attention to the prayers of his people, in the confidence that God sees and hears, God knows and God acts to save.

Only after all these things does the king turn to the immediate situation, and to their dire circumstances: “We have no power to face this mighty army.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”  

We have no power … we don’t know what to do … BUT our eyes are on you.

We think of prayer as speaking, but maybe it also has a lot to do with seeing: our eyes are on you.  Maybe one of the purposes of prayer isn’t so much for us to speak, or for us to hear from God … maybe it’s about helping us to see.  Helping us to know where (to whom) to look. Helping us to focus our attention in the right direction, upon the only right object of our gaze.

We have no power: a humble honesty.

We don’t know what to do: an honest humility.

But our eyes are on you: now that’s a prayer!

Where are you currently feeling powerless (“I have no power”), or uncertain (“I don’t know what to do”)?  How could you take your eyes off your own abilities (or lack thereof), off your own self-confidence (or lack thereof) and put them on Jesus?