How To Prepare Your Prayers for War

Psalms 5:3

3 O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

David put it this way: “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up” (Ps. 5:3). This Scripture means that he marshaled his thoughts like men of war or that he aimed his prayers like arrows.

He did not take the arrow and put it on the bowstring and just shoot anywhere. After he had taken out the chosen shaft and fitted it to the string, he took deliberate aim.

He looked—looked well—at the center of the target. He kept his eye fixed on it, directing his prayer, and then drew his bow with all his strength and let the arrow fly.

Then, when the shaft had left his hand, what did he say? “[I] will look up.” He looked up to see where the arrow went, to see what effect it had, for he expected an answer to his prayers; he was not like many who scarcely think of their prayers after they have uttered them.

David knew that he had an engagement before him that required all his mental powers. He marshaled his faculties and went about the work in a workmanlike manner, as one who believed in it and meant to succeed.

- Charles Spurgeon