Prayer – Page 5 – LOVE | ACCEPT

Psalm 89–Love and Faithfulness Go Before You

O Lord, where is your former great love, which in your faithfulness you swore to David? (Ps 89:50)

Like so many of psalms we have read before this entry, we could easily substitute our own name in place of the king’s. When we enter a season of spiritual winter, or even encounter travail in the otherwise sunny seasons, our tendency is look upward and outward rather than inward, in order to comprehend the perceived lack of love from the Father. Cries of “why are You doing this to me?” fill our prayers and thoughts. We labor to align the ‘promises’ of our faith with dark chasms that we suddenly have to cross. We Christians are prone to disillusionment in far greater percentage than the unbelieving souls around us.

Perhaps, this is because we have not developed a mature understanding of the promises of God.

Psalm 89 turns on verse 38. After rehearsing the greatness of God and reciting the promises of the covenant made with David, the psalmist points a finger at the sky and speaks aloud his accusations.

But you have reject, you have spurned, you have been very angry with your anointed one.

You have renounced the covenant with your servant and have defiled his crown in the dust. (vv 38-39)

The temerity of the final accusation is fascinating and telling. The crown that God has ‘defiled’ was formed, shaped, adorned, fitted and assigned by Him! It is His crown, only temporarily assigned to a mortal creature and conditionally, at that. The poet fails to include the countless failures and apostasies that God has endured within the kingdom he promised his love to. His expectation is wholly out of line with the covenant agreement and yet, he does not hesitate to ponder out loud why God has ‘failed’ to uphold his end of the bargain.

We will rarely know what greater good our seasons of struggle are intended to for. Our first thoughts should turn inward toward our own sin and breaches of love with God. Is this a time of discipline that is meant for correction? Be a good student and allow the Tutor to reform your heart. If the spirit does not bring sin to mind, search the Scriptures and find all those who struggled through similar circumstances. Their roles, however minor, in the greater span of the Kingdom give us hope that our pain is not wasted. God does and will turn all things for good. Count on that before raising your next accusation to the sky.

Grace and peace to you.

image Krystn Palmer

Psalm 88–The Darkness is My Closest Friend

Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved one from me;

the darkness is my closest friend. (Ps 88: 16-18)

The psalter contains numerous pleas for restoration, salvation and redemption but none as bleak as this. The psalmist lives a life, as it were, knowing only the dark side of God’s presence. Unlike Job who once knew a life of blessing, the psalmist here describes a life of pain and affliction from birth to the day he pens this scroll. The tragedy of his life is of such a degree that it is finally responsible for driving away even his loved ones and companions as he lives with one foot constantly at the edge of the grave.

The casual bible reader will quickly sift through these verses, reading forward to find more uplifting passages, but this would be a mistake.

Individual purpose is never easy to discern with our limited mindset. Why God would burden one of his beloved with such difficulty without respite is beyond our ability understand. And yet, we are called by the scriptures to endure, and even find joy in our travail, trusting that our pain and the darkness we inhabit has a larger purpose in His plan. Our response often echoes the despair that rings in these verses.

But I cry to you for help, O Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you.

Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? (vv 13-14)

This is a familiar frustration, that of the prayer that does not reach its audience. We plead and cry out but silence and pain are the only responses we receive. The Tempter whispers in our ear to surrender, to give up the belief that relief is at hand and to curse the One who visits it upon us. We come close, but we cannot do it. God will redeem this pain and bring light to this darkness. It may not be until we have left this plane, but it will occur. So we continue, like the psalmist, to raise our voice…

I call to you, O Lord, every day; I spread out my hands to you. (v9b)

Grace and peace to you.

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Psalm 87–I Will Record Rahab and Babylon as Acknowledging Me

He has set his foundation on the holy mountain;

the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. ( Ps 87:1-2)

In the enormity of the Psalter, like the whole of the Bible, small sections are easily overlooked by the casual reader in an effort to comprehend the span of God’s story. Only when we devote ourselves to directed and purposeful study or on our fifth or sixth time through the scriptures do the small, powerful truths come to the surface. Such are the seven verses of Psalm 87.

Two visions of the world are in view here. The Lord loves Zion, where He has chosen to make His home in the temple and become the centerpiece of their lives. His people would move toward Him in this arrangement. His Presence stayed in the Temple and worship required immediacy to that location. The psalm looks forward, however, to a time when His Presence would touch those far beyond Zion. It points to a time when Gentiles would we welcomed into the family, brothers and sisters who would acknowledge Him and cease their hostility toward Him. So it was written and so it has become.

Grace and peace to you..

image andrew mace–

Psalm 86–You Are Great and Do Marvelous Deeds

The arrogant are attacking me, O God;

a band of ruthless men seeks my life—men without regard for you. (Psalm 86:14)

While our lives may not be at risk from our enemies, each of us can still identify with the feeling of being vulnerable to threats by others. If our faith is strong, we call out to our Father for relief. If not, we often seek our own retribution, without a thought to how the attacks fit in the grand plan of God’s history. Do we miss an opportunity to turn the other cheek?

As we read through the Psalms we are struck by how deeply rooted in ancient culture and Jewish belief this poetry is. That is, we recognize the provenance of the literature and its history but we struggle to apply the thoughts to our life. The passages that praise God and exemplify total faith in Him are not difficult to seize hold of, but in the light of our current covenant, we are ashamed to admit that we still see our enemies in the same fashion. Publicly we advocate love for them but our private musings are made up of rambling imprecatory thoughts.

The psalmist fills this prayer with stanzas of praise as he seeks relief:

You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you. (v5)

He is also cognizant of the ultimate outcome of history:

All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord;

They will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. (vv 9-10)

Christians have and advantage that the psalmist did not; we live in the time of Jesus Christ and the new covenant. We have the end of history written for us in John’s apocalypse. We can live sacrificially toward our enemies, moving toward them rather than seeking the Lord’s hand to snatch us away from trouble. Like policeman and firefighters, we can run toward danger while others run away.

Grace and peace to you..

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Psalm 85 – Will You Be Angry with Us Forever?

Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.

The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.

Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps. (Psalm 85:10-13)

To speak of the Lord’s blessings in this language can only come from a heart that has know their absence. To live in the bliss of constant blessings is to come to see this as the normal state of things, the way it should be. Our corrupted souls begin to take it for granted and even begin to look for greater expressions of the love; ‘Manna again?!’

Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.

Will you be angry with us forever?

Will you prolong your anger through all generations? (vv 4-5)

At the other end of belief is to see God as perpetually angry and unwilling to forgive our iniquities. Many among us believe that God remains angry at them for something that they’ve done, said, thought, etc. and that their sin is so far beyond the pale that there is no forgiveness. We must find a way to convey the message of love and faithfulness expressed in the sacrifice of our precious Lord and Savior. God is anything but angry, His love is an invitation back into His arms. It is to know what a life of blessing looks and feels like.

Grace and peace to you.

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Psalm 79 – Will You Be Angry Forever?

O God, the nations have invade you inheritance;

they have defiled you holy temple,

they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble. (Ps 79:1)

The psalmist writes this opening line from exile. The verses that follow describe the horrors that filled their last visions of the promised land. The dead becoming food for birds, the Temple destroyed, much blood pooled everywhere; there was no end to the desecration of the Lord’s land or people.

And all of Israel knew that they were responsible for bringing it to the land.

How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?

How long will your jealousy burn like fire? (v4)

Was it appropriate to question the length their exile from God’s protection? The covenant shaped the boundaries of their relationship with Yahweh. He had upheld His end of the agreement and Israel had, time after time after time, utterly failed at hers. God had no responsibility to restore them to His fold, no covenant requirement to return them to the land and to prosperity.

Except that He loved them, just as He loves you today. Despite your many faults and failures. Despite your tendency to worship at other altars as the mood suits you. Despite the fact that you believe your sin to hide behind and opaque curtain. Despite the fact that your faithfulness to Him is questionable. He still loves you as a parent loves a wayward child.

The conditional structure of the psalm is disturbing to the Christian who is raised on the image of a merciful God. Calling for the crushing and destruction of one’s enemies does not normally occur to us (though we may privately entertain such thoughts.) It is the structure of the requests that trouble us. “Destroy them, curse them” says Israel and then we will worship you forever. Our modern eyes must read this carefully. The acts of destruction and carnage described are, above all, affronts to God. The call for retribution is a call to restore his Holy Name against those who demean it through their acts.

Psalm 79 speaks to responsibility. If we are lacking blessing, we need to return to the shadow of the cross so that, with sun blocked, we can see our own sin more clearly. Repenting, we can seek His mercy and praise Him once again.

Grace and peace to you.

image jamelah

Psalm 78 – In Spite of His Wonders, They Did Not Believe

It was not unusual for Jewish religious leaders to rehearse their covenant history with God in writing, or verbally in worship. The fickle loyalty of the human heart had loved and loathed with equal vigor again and again throughout the whole of their relationship with God. Typical of this ever changing relationship, the psalmist records this:

Thus he brought them to the border of his holy land,

to the hill country his right hand hand had taken.

He drove out nations before them and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance;

he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

But they put God to the test and rebelled against the most high;

they did not keep his statutes.

Like their father they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow. (Ps 78:54-56)

Christians often wish aloud to be restored to an age of signs and wonders, claiming that their faith would be impenetrable to doubt if they could just see a single miracle. Saving the miracle of changed lives that surround them for a later discussion, we need only read this psalm or the Old Testament to know that this is bunk. The human heart is, above all else, dedicated to self.

The Christian will say aloud that ‘their heart belongs to Jesus’ but in practice, they are fully aware of the parts they hold back for themselves. We put our faith in God who is unseen and the corruption of our heart is such that we continue to harbor doubt about whether or not He might come through for us. We read our bibles and see that time after time, God has been perfectly faithful and yet we wonder if this is the day when He will not. We wander in a desert of our own making.

There is no such thing as a part-time Christian. Christ lives in us but did not displace us. Paul’s words to the Galatian church remind us “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal 2:20) The struggle is internal but must ultimately end in our surrender of the parts of our hearts that we insist on keeping to ourselves. The signs and wonders we seek are inside of us and ready to be displayed only at our own humility. Problem with anger that you want to disappear? Bend the knee and turn it over to Christ in you and see it reworked. Unable to control some personality aspect? Give it to Christ in you and see it changed. Allow the Holy Ghost to completely overtake your heart and the signs and wonders will be before you constantly. Belief will grow to the benefit of all.

Grace and peace to you.

image by kmakice

Psalm 77 – I Cried Out to God to Hear Me

I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands

and my soul refused to be comforted. (Ps 77:1-2)

We are all familiar with these dark nights in which we cry out to the Lord but seem to receive not a word in return. Our distress deepens with the silence but moreover, our thoughts return to times of blessing. Why does God bless us here and leave us in distress there? These thoughts drive the psalmist to say:

I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint.

You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak.

I thought about the former days, the years of long ago;

I remembered my songs in the night.

My heart mused and my spirit inquired: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again?” (vv 3-7)

Our greatest difficulty comes in the limited time span of our thoughts. We only see tomorrow and the end of our days but God looks into eternity. Our travails which seem unending and insurmountable to us are but a second in His vision. Our difficulty in facing the struggles of today is our inability to look beyond, to know a time when it will be all blessing and no sorrow. Can we look that far?

Grace and peace to you..

image by pshmell

Psalm 76 – He Is Feared By The Kings Of The Earth

From heaven you pronounced judgment, and the land feared and was quiet–

when you, O God, rose up to judge, to save all the afflicted of the land.

Surely your wrath against men brings you praise, and the survivors of your wrath are restrained. (Ps 76:8-10)

Political correctness would tear psalms such as this one from the pages of the Bible. A cheer for the God who destroys enemies and brings rulers to heel? This sounds so foreign because we want a God who stands off at a distance and rolls His eyes at our interpersonal and international battles. No longer does God favor one nation over another or even condone the exclusivity of one religious path.

In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel.

His tent is in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion.

There he broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords, the weapons of war. (vv 1-3)

Modern Christianity is personal. We call it our faith but do not extol its superiority over all others. Why not? We have here in the scriptures proclamations of God’s choice of Israel as His people and the Temple as His dwelling place. Dare we not say the same thing? God has chosen us in Christ and our soul is His dwelling place? Is this defeat for all competing belief systems?

Grace and peace to you..

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Psalm 74 – Rise Up O God and Defend Your Cause

Where do you turn when everything around you has crumbled to ruin? Whether or not it aligns with reality, we’ve all felt at least as though everything was gone. Trouble has a way of compounding in our minds until all we can see is ruin.

Little has changed throughout history.

The psalmist was looking about and saw nothing but ruin. His people were in exile, the temple lay in ruins, and the promised land taken from them. Everything that they had built their self identity upon had been snatched and the psalmist cries out in desperation for Yahweh to restore them.

Why have you rejected us forever, O God?

Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?

Remember the people you purchased of old, the tribe of your inheritance, whom you redeemed—Mount Zion, where you dwelt.

Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary. (Ps 74:1-3)

We meditate on these verses and, with a little perspective from time and distance, we answer back. You failed to keep up your end of the covenant! Why do you cry out to God we say, when you know you were responsible for the ruin that your life has become.

And then that moment of self-realization hits us.

We too are responsible for those black nights in which it appears that all is in ruin and that the Lord has abandoned us. Is it more likely that someone two-thousand years distant from us will look back on our plea and say, what is wrong with you? You are the one who moved away from God, not He from you.

Grace and peace to you

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