FIRSTنموونە

Incense

By Zach Neese

I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy. Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live. Psalm 116:1–2 (NIV)

Before my wife, Jen, and I got married, I was hunting for a gift for her birthday. I had taken a female friend along to help me make a gender-appropriate selection. As we were browsing, she handed me a little vial of perfume and asked, “What do you think of this?” I removed the top and inhaled deeply. I’d never experienced anything like it! When that fragrance hit my nose, it was like too much wine to my senses: my knees turned to water, my vision blurred, and my lips went numb. The people around me seemed to grow fuzz like chia pets, and my heart was pounding like a kettle drum. My friend had to scoop me up off the floor.

I think that David was convinced that his prayers could have a similar effect on God. In Psalm 141:2 (NIV), he says, “May my prayer be set before You like incense.” It’s funny to me that David compares prayer to incense, something that smells good. It’s like David is saying, “God, I hope this prayer is like perfume that’s so pleasing to You that it compels You to action.”

Did you ever think that your prayers could be like that to God? David didn’t pray as a religious exercise; he prayed to make his God swoon—to move His heart. In 1 Samuel 13:14, God called David a man after His own heart. The Hebrew word for after isachar, which means to follow in hot pursuit. When David prayed, he was pursuing God’s heart. That’s why David’s psalms are so passionate. They are the correspondence of a passionate relationship—love letters to God.

One of my greatest pleasures is pulling my children up into my lap and hearing the story of their day. Do retellings of Star Wars battles, Polly Pocket adventures, and wrestling mishaps put me to sleep? No. Fathers delight in listening to their children.

I’m certain that our heavenly Father feels the same way about us. One of the reasons God breathed into Adam’s nostrils is that He wanted to hear His creation’s voice. He made Adam to walk and talk with Him in the cool of the day. We were designed for a life-long conversation with God.

Prayer encompasses many things: supplication, praise, submission, intercession, repentance, declaration, binding, loosing and listening. But let’s not forget what Jesus taught His disciples when they asked Him how they should pray. He said, “Start like this, ‘Our Father who is in heaven ....’” The prayer God loves doesn’t start with a complaint or a Christmas list; it always starts by aligning our hearts with His desire for a relationship.

The conversation could go something like this:

“Hi, Dad. I love You. You’re the greatest.” “Hi, Zach. I love you, too. What’s going on in your life?”

It’s as simple as inhaling and exhaling. Which brings us back to incense.

Incense is interesting for another reason: unless you light it, incense is just a pile of smelly dirt. But when you put fire under it, it burns and changes the environment. Prayer is also like that. Heartless, lukewarm prayer is dry and dusty. It blows around aimlessly and doesn’t fulfill its purpose. Prayer, like incense, is designed for fire. It only rises if it burns, and when it burns, it changes the atmosphere.

A life lived in open and passionate communication with God does the same thing—it burns and changes the atmosphere of the world it lives in.

Today you can have confidence in this: your Father is eager to hear from you, He won’t miss a word of your conversation, and the sweet sound of your voice compels Him to action. So let your incense rise. Don’t miss the opportunity for the conversation of a lifetime. It’ll change your world.

Prayer is the power by which something comes to pass which otherwise would not take place. ~ Andrew Murray

Memory Verse

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12: 30 (NIV)