Psalms 4:1 “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.”
Many years ago, while visiting in the hospital, I overheard a prayer in the hallway. A man cried out, “I Command You God To Heal” the sick person. I expected an immediate response from the Lord, but the Lord being longsuffering did not strike him down. The “prayer of the righteous” (Proverbs 15:29; James 5:16) is a humble and contrite plea for “mercy”. When the “righteous” pray, they both know and declare that they are unworthy sinners, but God is perfectly “righteous”; that their “righteousness” is the imputed “righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21); that they are weak, but God is Sovereignly Omnipotent; and that their help will be granted by God’s loving “mercy”, not because they have earned it or deserved it. When the “righteous” pray, they pray as “the publican” who “standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). The Lord said of the praying “sinner”, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)! At this time, we are in great need of the sincere and humble prayers of God’s Children, who flee to the “throne of grace” and cry out to our merciful and gracious God for “mercy” and “grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).