THE SWEET SMELL OF PRAYER
May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141:2
The tabernacle and the temple were designed with identical furnishings. In the larger of the two rooms called the Holy Place, the priests were allowed to carry out their ministry. Among the furniture contained in the Holy Place was the altar of incense, which had a specific purpose and was very symbolic.
This altar was a small table measuring about 18 inches square and 36 inches high. It was made of wood overlaid with gold. On the four corners were fashioned horns on which the high priest would dab blood on the Day of Atonement. Priests brought burning coals from the bronze altar in the courtyard to keep the incense lit day and night. God provided his own recipe for making the incense, which the people were forbidden to duplicate for their own use. The sweet fragrance of this incense could be noticed in the courtyard. The rising smoke of the burning incense represented the prayers of the people rising up to heaven.
How appropriate it was that one day a priest named Zechariah, while tending that altar, was visited by an angel who spoke to him about his personal prayer. “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John” (Luke 1:13). Zechariah’s heart had suffered for many years because he and his wife, Elizabeth, could not have a child. How earnestly and incessantly they must have pleaded with God to grant them that blessing. Now, years later, the Lord was about to give them their wish. The son to be born would bear the name John the Baptist.
No prayer of a believer is ever prayed in vain. God’s faithful can be confident that like the incense of old, our prayers rise up to reach the throne of God. Matthew Henry once wrote, “Prayers of the faithful are filed in heaven; and, although not presently answered are not forgotten. Prayer made when we are young, and coming into the world, may be answered when we are old, and going out of the world.” Just as the priests never tired of keeping the sweet smoke rising to heaven, so we should not grow weary of earnestly continuing our requests to God.
Spend a moment today to lift your hands toward heaven and pray.
From The Gift of Prayer