Month: June 2017

As I grow old I find that I am more conscious than ever of my need to pray, but it seems at the same time to become more of a struggle.

―Elisabeth Elliot

Scripture: Psalm 107.1-3

He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

Reflection: Why Do We Need the Leading of the Spirit?
By Thomas Jacomb (1622–1687)

The leading of the Spirit—O, how highly necessary is it! Who can be without it?

What becomes of the poor blind man that has none to guide him? Of the weak child that has none to uphold it? Alas! the poor sinner, in both respects, does more need the Spirit’s leading inwardly, than either of these need external leading.

Such is our spiritual blindness—our aptness to wander, our ignorance of our way, our liableness to fall down. Without a divine hand to guide us, we are lost. Such, too, is our spiritual debility and weakness, as that, if the Spirit of God do not hold us up in our going, “taking us by our arms,” we fall immediately. How absolutely necessary, therefore, is the Spirit’s leading, both for direction and also for sustentation!

Christian prudence, caution, and circumspection, is our duty; but do we lay the stress of our confidence upon that? “The steps of our strength shall be straitened, and our own counsel shall cast us down.” So long as you think [that] you can go by yourself, the Spirit will not take you by the hand to lead you.

Would you have him to lead you? O, let your trust and reliance be upon him; and see that you renounce all confidences in yourselves. He who thinks he has wisdom or grace enough in himself to “order his conversation aright,” shall never find the Spirit to be a guide to him.

Pray much for this grace of the Spirit. How much was David in prayer to God for this!

• “Lead me in thy truth, and teach me.”
• “Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness; make thy way straight before my face.”
• “For thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.”
• “Lead me in the way everlasting.”
• “Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.”

O, what a desirable mercy is this leading mercy! Will you not every day make this your request?

The Call to Prayer

Come, let us sing to the Lord; … For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. —Psalm 95.1, 3

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 20 (Listen – 2:55)
Psalm 107 (Listen – 4:12)

 

Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy.

―Elie Wiesel

Scripture: Psalm 106.4

Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you save them

Reflection: The Pain of Being Forgotten
The Park Forum

It’s intensely painful to be forgotten. When we’re forgotten professionally it costs the accolade of others, the promotion we hope for, or the compensation we’ve earned.

In friendship and dating, it launches a restless search for a reason.

In divorce, it cuts to the deepest parts of the soul.

In disease, like Alzheimers or dementia, it destroys dreams, lives, and families.

The book of Exodus begins in the darkness of being forgotten. In a matter of a few generations, Israel went from saving Egypt to being enslaved by them. Now they toil and suffer because pharaoh has forgotten.

Being forgotten is a fruit of the fall. It’s a condition of a broken world that people can cease to be mindful of others who are made in the image of God. It’s no wonder God’s words to Moses are the words of someone who remembers — who holds close — the cry of his people. “I have seen… I have heard… I know… I have come to deliver…”

When the authors of scripture say God remembers someone they are not contrasting it to God’s forgetfulness, but the world’s. The book of Exodus chronicles God’s remembrance of Israel alongside their pain of being forgotten by Egypt.

Evil has no regard for our well being in the world. Yet God remembers. It was the Son of God’s hands which were nailed to the cross because God refused to forget us — even in our sin. It was his body that was bruised and broken so that we could be known.

The true and greater exodus is found in God’s redemption of his people. The forgetfulness of the world may wound us deeply, but it cannot diminish, in the least, the vibrant life and work of Christ in our lives. In him we are remembered. In him we are restored. In him we are loved and known in a way that the forgetfulness of this world cannot take away.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Send forth your strength, O God; establish, O God, what you have wrought for us.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 19 (Listen – 3:04)
Psalm 106 (Listen – 4:52)

Father in heaven! Draw our hearts to you so that our longing may be where our treasure is supposed to be.

―Søren Kierkegaard

Scripture: Psalm 105.5-6

Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered, O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

Reflection: Fatherhood’s Collapse, Love’s Destruction
The Park Forum

There are few ways to understate the brokenness of fatherhood in our culture. The Washington Times reports that 11% of kids grew up in a home without a father in 1960. Today that number is over 33%. Princeton Historian Lawrence Tone observes:

The scale of marital breakdowns in the West since 1960 has no historical precedent that I know of. There has been nothing like it for the last 2,000 years, and probably longer.

Paternal absence is so high — near pandemic — that we have barely began a public conversation on quality or character of fathers. For many, it wasn’t a father’s absence, but the character and quality of his presence that left the deepest wounds.

While Scripture uses many images for God, few of them create the mixed emotions of talking about God as Father. The effects of this reaction cannot be underestimated. Our view of love is anemic because our view of fatherhood is so damaged. It is God’s fatherhood that gives the depth, intimacy, and love we desire most.

If God is only a teacher, we miss the relational depth we need. If he is only creator we lack intimacy with him (he is like a watchmaker). If he’s only a judge he can love the law, but isn’t required to love the one in his courtroom.

The Christian view of God as father does not simply take the characteristics of earthly fathers and polish them up a bit. God as our Father creates a new image of a good, true, and perfect Father.

But where is this fatherhood rooted? The Bible says God is love. Not just that he has love or shows love, but that his very nature is love. In this sense, 1 Corinthians 13 could be paraphrased:

Dad is patient. Dad is kind. Dad does not envy or boast. Dad is not arrogant. Dad is not rude. Dad does not insist on his own way. Dad is not irritable. Dad is not resentful. Dad does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Dad bears all things for his kids. Dad believes all things about his kids. Dad hopes all things for his kids. Dad endures all things for his kids. Dad’s love never ends.

Prayer: The Request for Presence 

“May God be merciful to us and bless us,* show us the light of his countenance and come to us.”

Excerpt From: Phyllis Tickle. “The Divine Hours (Volume One): Prayers for Summertime.”

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 18 (Listen – 3:08)
Psalm 105 (Listen – 4:02)

Prayer is but a sensible acknowledgment of our dependence on him to his glory. As he has made all things for his own glory, so he will be glorified and acknowledged by his creatures.

―Jonathan Edwards

Scripture: Psalm 104.1

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Reflection: Praying Through the Stress of Work
The Park Forum

The beauty of the psalms is they are not simply inspiration and instruction, but example. In hearing and praying through the psalms we find spiritual vitality in a world austere to the divine.

The idea of commanding one’s soul to bless the Lord, as the Psalmist does five times in Psalms 103-104, can seem trite and overly emotional—but this is far from the holistic rejoicing the psalmist had in mind.

In his journals Jonathan Edwards reveals the way his spiritual life is burdened by stresses of his vocation. He creates space to recenter himself on Christ through the scriptures, prayer for others, and community. And in this, he rejoices in the joys of his Heavenly Father:

Tuesday, June 26. In the morning my desires seemed to rise, and ascend up freely to God. Was busy most of the day in translating prayers into the language of the Delaware Indians; met with great difficulty… But though I was much discouraged with the extreme difficulty of that work, God supported me; and especially in the evening gave me sweet refreshment.

In prayer my soul was enlarged, and my faith drawn into sensible exercise; was enabled to cry to God for [them]; and though the work of their conversion appeared impossible with man, yet with God I saw all things were possible.

My faith was much strengthened, by observing the wonderful assistance God afforded his servants Nehemiah and Ezra, in reforming his people, and re-establishing his ancient church.

I was much assisted in prayer for dear christian friends, and for others that I apprehended to be Christ-less… [I] was enabled to be instant in prayer for them; and hoped that God would bow the heavens and come down for their salvation. It seemed to me there could be no impediment sufficient to obstruct that glorious work, seeing the living God, as I strongly hoped, was engaged for it.

I continued in a solemn frame, lifting up my heart to God for assistance and grace, that I might be more mortified to this present world, that my whole soul might be taken up continually in concern for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom: longed that God would purge me more, that I might be as a chosen vessel to bear his name among the heathens. Continued in this frame till I dropped asleep.

Prayer: The Greeting

Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. —Psalm 80.3

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 17 (Listen – 3:24)
Psalm 104 (Listen – 3:37)

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

―J.R.R. Tolkien

Scripture: Psalm 100.1-2

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness!

Reflection: Hopes and Dreams
The Park Forum

In the late 1860’s Charles Feltman replaced the pie wagon he had pushed through the sand on Coney Island for years with a new one that could serve his latest creation: sausage wrapped in a pastry bun.

People were skeptical of what would become known as the hot dog, but the idea took off and Feltman built a restaurant that expanded rapidly. The Coney Island History Project reports that Feltman’s, “covered a full city block and consisted of nine restaurants, a roller coaster, a carousel, a ballroom, an outdoor movie theater, a hotel, a beer garden, a bathhouse, a pavilion, a Tyrolean village, two enormous bars, and a maple garden.”

Even after his death in 1910, the restaurant continued to expand—with over five million patrons in 1923 alone. If ever there was an institution that looked like it could last it was the dime-a-hotdog restaurant that could serve 8,000 people at a time and sat not far from the beach and newly-opened subway. But in less than a decade the Great Depression set in and business dried up quickly. Feltman’s family was soon faced with the task of closing the venues and selling off the land.

We strap our hopes and dreams to what looks most successful and trustworthy. Yet ventures succeed and fail—taking entrepreneurs, investors, employees, and families along with them. Far too many people end up wrought with strife and brokenness because they invest everything they are into things which are exposed as unworthy.

Psalm 100 is the closing Psalm in a series of psalms (starting at Psalm 93) that renders praise to God because he is sufficiently worthy of our praise, affection, and hope. Those who praise God are full of joy because worship centers their life in God’s presence—and better is one day in his presence than thousands elsewhere.

Our work on this earth might carry on beyond our lives—a Coney Island man recently opened a Feltman’s pop up—and is worthy of our time and energy. At the same time, we should guard ourselves from allowing vocation and success to become the object of our affection or the source of our hope and joy.

Prayer: The Cry of the Church

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 13-14 (Listen – 6:35)
Psalm 99-101 (Listen – 2:48)

This Weekend’s Readings
Deuteronomy 15 (Listen – 3:20) Psalm 102 (Listen – 2:45)
Deuteronomy 16 (Listen – 3:25) Psalm 103 (Listen – 2:07)