Author: Erin Newton

Posted on

You Matter

Scripture Focus: 2 Kings 6:5-7
5 As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. “Oh no, my lord!” he cried out. “It was borrowed!”
6 The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. 7 “Lift it out,” he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

Reflection: You Matter
By Erin Newton

I don’t have anything to pay my taxes. A coin appears in the fish’s mouth.

The wine has run out. Water is transformed.

The tool I borrowed fell into the river. The ax-head floats.

Have you ever started a prayer request with the disclaimer, “I know this is no big deal…” or even avoided sharing a request because it seemed so insignificant in comparison to others?

My brother died. Lazarus walks out of the tomb.

I have bled for a decade. The hem cures a lifetime disease.

They are trying to burn us alive. The three men survive unscathed.

We pray for the big ones—the big needs that seem to warrant prayer because our ability is so evidently outmatched. When we think we are strong, we forget to ask for help. Or maybe we think some things are too small for God.

The story of the floating ax is seven verses long. It is brushed over rather quickly in most commentaries in just one paragraph. It follows a larger miracle—a big one—as Naaman is healed of leprosy. The lack of attention for this physics-defying event reflects our assumption that some things are too small to bother God.

Or maybe it’s just too mundane. Why would God care about a borrowed tool? It was just a tool. Replaceable. Inanimate. Perhaps a little old. Maybe a little dull. Definitely a little broken.

What if the reluctance to ask for help in the little things reflects how we think God looks at us? Do we think God only cares about the big things and the important people?

For all the verses that speak of God’s love for his creation, we sometimes love ourselves very little. We think God only cares about the military commanders with leprosy, not an unnamed prophet cutting down trees.  

The next verses speak of the servant’s miraculous vision of Elisha surrounded by a host of angels, hills covered in horses, and chariots of fire. Nestled among these big miracles is the simple recovery of a borrowed ax.

In our world that promotes grandeur and importance, God still cares about the littlest of things. He sees the faithful person doing a day’s work, nothing grand, nothing glorious, and he cares.
There is no need for a disclaimer on “little” prayers. God’s attentiveness poured out for you comes in the same measure as it is with the highest-ranking officer.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Love the Lord, all you who worship him; the Lord protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily. — Psalm 31.23


Today’s Readings
2 Kings 6 (Listen 5:05)
Psalms 51 (Listen 2:19)

Read more about Don’t Lose Heart: God Hears Your Prayers
God isn’t like us—or the unjust judge. He doesn’t grow weary of our prayers.

Don’t Lose Heart: God Hears Your Prayers

Read more about Supporting Our Work
Please consider becoming a donor. Support ad-free content that brings biblical devotionals to inboxes across the world.

Supporting our Work
Posted on

The Weakness in Evil’s Armor

Scripture Focus: 1 Kings 22:30, 34
30 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.
34 But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, “Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.” 

Reflection: The Weakness in Evil’s Armor
By Erin Newton

No evil act can thwart the providence of God. No person can go unnoticed by the ever-watchful eye of our Lord. Nobody hides from an omnipresent deity.

Ahab ruled over God’s people with an oppressive hand. Confident in his power, he ignored the prophet’s threat and wore a disguise to battle. He tried to control the situation and force a favorable outcome. Then by chance—no, by God’s providence—a stray arrow pierced the king and he died.

Evil leaders seem indestructible. They promote themselves as indestructible. Ahab certainly fit the profile. He was corrupt, deceitful, proud, and merciless. He would rather harm befall his peers. He tried to place the target on his comrade, the king of Judah.

The king shielded his weakness with armor, assuming the protection would be as impenetrable as dragon scales. But even iron-clad monsters are not invincible.

The Hobbit tells a story of Smaug, a dragon who set out to destroy the people of Dale. Cocky and boastful of his armored hide, Smaug taunts the people, “My armor is like ten-fold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears…” This prideful spirit is just like Ahab. But a weakness in the armor of king and dragon will be found.

In each story, a single arrow strikes in the smallest gap of the armor. The miraculous “once in a lifetime” shot is an arrow finding its target. For our story, it is an arrow guided by the almighty hand of God. The undefeated Creator of the world can bring down evil leaders with a slender stick and random human efforts.

Such is the providence of God. Scheming evil leaders assume they have power to hide themselves, control the circumstances, and escape judgment. The story of Ahab reminds us of the omnipotence of our God.

But some aspects of his providence are difficult to understand. What about all the prophets harmed by Ahab’s rule and Jezebel’s rage? Why could not that arrow have flown years earlier?

We simply do not know. And this leads us to the place in our faith that we must hold in tension: God’s sovereign rule and the continuance of evil. We know God despises evil and grieves such atrocities. We fill our hearts with pleas for justice and intercession for the weak.

Rest assured, no one escapes the will of God. Not even leaders who think they can hide. 

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Who is like you, Lord God of hosts? O mighty Lord, your faithfulness is all around you.
Righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne; love and truth go before your face. — Psalm 89.8

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

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 22 (Listen 7:51)
Psalms 44 (Listen 2:44)

Read more about Kings Like Ahab
Ahab gets the most ink in Kings. He’s unquestionably wicked, yet God used and spoke to him frequently. Why?

Kings Like Ahab

Read more about Evil, Judgment, or Discipline?
Sometimes bad things happen as part of God’s judgment…as Johnny Cash sang, “…sooner or later, God’ll cut you down.”

Evil, Judgment, or Discipline?

Posted on

Sluggish Grief

Scripture Focus: Psalm 42:5-7
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

Psalm 43:5
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Reflection: Sluggish Grief
By Erin Newton

In the movie, Paddington, one character reflects on his emotional journey of settling into a new place: “My body had traveled fast, but my heart… she took a little longer to arrive.” The heart can be sluggish during grief. It’s frustrating and discouraging.

I wish grief was a cycle; instead, it is a web. Our bodies are bound to the linear progression of time. We are moving from one event to another, but our hearts and minds are stuck in a tangled web of emotions and thoughts.

The repeated phrase, “Why, my soul, are you downcast?” reflects this emotional tangle. The psalmist tries to soothe himself with words of counsel. “Hope in God…Remember the good times.” Oh, I’ve heard those platitudes from others. And I’ve tried to use them to urge my heart into better spirits.

But grief is not linear. The stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—don’t happen sequentially.

Psalms 42-43 show this type of tangled emotional experience. At first, we see the depth of sadness, “tears have been my food day and night” (Psalm 42.3). Then a joyous memory, “How I used to go to the house of God…with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng” (Psalm 42.4). Then the declaration of depression, “all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”

The journey of emotional experience is like traveling across the mountains. There is the bright ascent to the peak, the crisp breeze, and clear skies. We gaze upon the view and see the other mountaintops, each basking in the pure sunlight. But to get there, we must descend into the valley, the dark woods.

Amy Carmichael calls this “The Ravine.” It is the painful memory of better days: “Yes, we were one of a festive crowd; was there any happy thing that we did not do? And we think of what used to be, so different from all that is now.”

Our minds know of God’s goodness, the joy of his presence, the hope of better days, but our hearts take a little longer to get there.

“We know that it is true. And yet there is something in the trend of our thoughts that is like the backwash of the waves, as wave after wave breaks on the shore…We have seen the lovely radiance of that upper air. But our feet must walk the ways of earth down that dreary hill, past those somber trees, and into the valley…”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. — Psalm 126.6-7

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

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 21 (Listen 4:19)
Psalms 42-43 (Listen 2:32)

Read more about Be With Me
The weight of our sadness reflects the hope of a beautiful life that has been tragically altered.
But we are not alone. God is near to the brokenhearted…

Be With Me

Read The Bible With Us
Join our Bible reading plan. Find meaning in the Bible by reading at a sustainable, two-year pace.
https://mailchi.mp/theparkforum/m-f-daily-email-devotional

Posted on

Wartime Prayers

Scripture Focus: Psalm 35:5-6
5 May they be like chaff before the wind,
     with the angel of the Lord driving them away;
 6 may their path be dark and slippery,
     with the angel of the Lord pursuing them.

From John: Erin and I are both ready for our daily readings, especially imprecatory psalms, to be less topical to current events. It’s distressing to write from the scriptures referencing some of the horrors we’ve recently witnessed up close and far off. But isn’t that what the scriptures are for? And what regular reading does for us? One of the best features of the way we approach devotionals at The Park Forum is that we don’t chase topics, we just walk in the scriptures. For no matter what valley we walk through, Jesus is with us in his Word, through the Spirit, and among the community of faith. Peace be with us, in us, and among us.

Reflection: Wartime Prayers
By Erin Newton

The book of Psalms reveals a wide range of emotional responses to life: praise, joy, lament, pleas for deliverance, and expressions that seek justice. Psalm 35 is one of the latter types of psalms—an imprecatory prayer.

The psalmist utilizes militant language asking for shield, armor, spear, and javelin to be set against the enemy. There is hope that the foe will be caught in a net, fall into a pit, and be disgraced and put to shame.

It is a prayer against injustice. It is a prayer for retribution.

Many of us are peace-time civilians in the West. Our conflicts are not wartime struggles but personal attacks, neighborly conflicts, and systemic injustices. But war still happens, is happening now, around the globe. The cry for justice is universal.

Federico Villanueva, a Filipino scholar, reveals the most important aspect to this type of prayer: “The difference is that this prayer is directed to God. It is not simply wishing that something bad will happen to a person; it is asking God to do this action.”

Psalm 35 is unique within the book of Psalms. Together with Psalm 34, it is the only place the angel of the Lord is mentioned. The plea is for the enemy to become worthless, useless, weak, chaff. The psalmist begs for the way of the enemy to be darkened and treacherous. The whole plot to disarm the enemy is done by the angel of the Lord.

Injustice should lead our hearts to lament and pray. Our emotions should rise with the stories of pain and suffering. These psalms give voice to the Spirit that stirs within us, “Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me!”

The desire to defend the weak is good and righteous. We are called to seek justice in every area of our lives. Let us seek God as we pray for his will to be done. When we are cornered and afraid, let us call upon God to impart perfect justice as only he can.

Federico reminds us: “Human justice is very imperfect…The imprecatory prayers become expressions of trust in God our Father who is not only powerful but is just and loving. It brings comfort to those who are weak and oppressed, who have no one else to go to but God. It also serves as a strong warning for the oppressors. There is a God who fights for the right of the weak.”


Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me, O God of Israel. — Psalm 69.7

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


Today’s Readings
1 Kings 15 (Listen 5:30)
Psalms 35 (Listen 3:21)

Read more about Miracles of Deliverance and Judgment
In a warzone, however, wickedness removes its disguises…The lies of wicked rulers corrupt those around them and cost lives.

Miracles of Deliverance and Judgment

Read more about An Imprecatory Psalm for Mass Shootings
The imprecatory psalms and our angry prayers in crisis are still valuable to God.

An Imprecatory Psalm for Mass Shootings


Posted on

Be With Me

Scripture Focus: Psalm 34.18
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
     and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Reflection: Be With Me
By Erin Newton

In the kingdom of the heavens, no suffering is unknown;
 each tear that falls is holy, each breaking heart a throne.
 There is a song of beauty on every weeping eye —
 for there is One who loves me: His heart, it breaks with mine

These words, which bring me to tears every time, are from the song “Little Things with Great Love” by Porter’s Gate.

At the end of this summer, just a few weeks ago, my mother died. For six years, I limped along this journey of anticipated grief, knowing that her cancer was incurable. I became accustomed to sadness. It was simply a part of my life.

Many of us carry the weight of grief, pain, suffering, trauma—all sorts of sadness—with us every day. Instead of a passing feeling, it becomes a state of being. Grief is an unwelcome guest that lingers too long and too close.

Psalm 34 speaks of deliverance from fear and salvation from troubles. It was the plea of my anguished heart. I like to avoid sadness. Bottling up emotions, avoiding all sad movies, and never lingering too long on tragic events—this was my way of living.

Now I have learned that we get to grieve deeply because we have loved deeply. The weight of our sadness reflects the hope of a beautiful life that has been tragically altered.

What is never mentioned in the psalm is the absence of trouble. It is not praising God for a carefree life. As much as I want to escape heartache, suffering is part of living.

But we are not alone. God is near to the brokenhearted, the completely broken and crushed soul.

In the last days of my mom’s life, I would step out of the car and take a deep breath. I had to go in there and sit by her bed, counting breaths as they labored and slowed. I knew I had to go inside. There was no choice. “Dear Lord, can you go in there with me?” And he did.

I have known the depths of pain, but I have felt the strength of God’s presence. My mom could hear songs “like a choir” and felt an unseen hand rest upon her shoulder. God is near to us.

If there is any way I could talk to my mom now, I’d let her know I’m doing okay. Because I’ll never be alone.

Music: “Little Things with Great Love,” by Porter’s Gate

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
…come to me speedily, O God. You are my helper and deliverer; O Lord, do not tarry. — Psalm 70.5-6

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


Today’s Readings
1 Kings 14 (Listen 5:22)
Psalms 34 (Listen 2:14)

Read more about In the Face of Grief
None of Christ’s followers had to leave their sorrow behind for Jesus to come to them.

In the Face of Grief

Read more about The Grace of Holding Space
What is most needed in these times is a willingness to simply “hold space” for another.

The Grace of Holding Space