O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
"We do not know what to do." That's not the confident language you'd expect from a king rallying his people before a battle. Jehoshaphat is facing an alliance of nations coming to wipe out his own, and instead of pretending he has a plan, he says the plain truth out loud in front of everyone: he's out of ideas.
And then comes the line that turns the whole prayer: but our eyes are on you. Not a strategy. Not even hope exactly. Just attention, pointed in one direction because every other direction has come up empty.
There's something almost relieving about a prayer this stripped down. It doesn't require you to have faith all figured out, or confidence you don't actually feel. It just requires you to admit where you're stuck and look somewhere anyway. That's a much lower bar than most people assume prayer requires — and maybe worth trying the next time you genuinely don't know what to do either.
If there's something right now you genuinely don't know how to handle, this is a prayer simple enough to just borrow as it is.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.