Aim High

“…To the end that my tongue and my heart and everything glorious within me may sing praise to You and not be silent: O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”—Psalm 30:12, Amplified

In a tight spot, at our wit’s end, at the end of a long day, often, the only two words we can muster in prayer are “Oh, Lord!”  It’s good to know that no matter how we may feel, when we choose to look Up, these seemingly feeble words shoot straight to the ears and heart of God. The light of the Word exposes the adversary's shady attempts to convince us otherwise:  “the [Holy] Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

Not that we should settle for two-word prayers, but that hope-filled promise alone is enough to daily rekindle the flame of worship within and take it off auto-pilot. And not only that, there's a two-word cousin to the “Oh, Lord!” arrow that adds even more octane to the worship fuel mix, for every Sunday gathering and every weekday routine.

All for the sake of a missing "h," the phrase “O Lord” shows up a gazillion times in the psalms, and in Psalm 30 alone, eight times within its 12 verses. But rather than the desperate sigh of its cousin, this expression is an arrow that the ancients fired when specifically addressing or calling out a person’s name to let them know they were speaking only to them.

And, no matter what kind of day we're having or had, these five simple letters can help refocus our hearts, as it did with David and other saints who've gone through it all before us, to trust and give glory to our Singular Reason to be alive — and to no other reason, possibility, circumstance, or person (including ourselves):

O Lord, for You have lifted me up

O Lord, I cried to You and You have healed me

O Lord, You have brought my life up from the pit

O Lord, You have established me as a strong mountain

And when the psalmist adds things like this:

O Lord, to You I made supplication

O Lord, have mercy and be gracious to me

O Lord, be my helper...

...it’s a reminder to our distracted, world-bombarded souls that our prayers and praises don’t go out into some endless abyss where there is no answering service, but like the "Oh, Lord!" sigh, fly like a flaming arrow to the one God who made and still rules heaven and earth, and who is always very near…even and perhaps especially in those moments when He seems to be far away.

O Lord, help us remember that a worshiper isn't someone who says just the right words, sings all the right notes, or who can raise their hands and shout with the best of them, but that...

"A worshiper...is someone who's just aimed straight at God." — Reuben Morgan