Park Forum - The Park Forum

October 12, 2018October 30, 2024

Created Anew

Psalm 100.1-2
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness!

Reflection: Created Anew
The Park Forum

The rabbis speak of “right intentions”: yetzer ha-tov (the good inclination) vs yetzer ha-ra (the evil inclination). It is possible to serve the Lord out of joy and it is possible to serve him out of duty. On the outside, acts of service appear the same: “but the Lord looks at the heart.”

This could be the difference between God’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice and rejection of Cain’s. One brother sacrificed with joy, the other out of duty, and some commentators note that God accepted the sacrifice that was given in joy—or, in this case, love—and rejected the one given from obligation—void of relationship and the joy that comes from it.

Likewise this is how the rich young ruler could obey every observable letter of the law and still walk away from Christ. No one objected when the young man said he obeyed the law—on the outside he looked righteous. Yet, the rhythms of relationship with God were foreign to him.

Christianity doesn’t offer religion as the solution for irreligion. The scriptures identify our core problem as a lack of relationship. We do not know God, we don’t understand ourselves, and we are distanced from others; even our relationship with the planet and its climate are deeply fractured. You can’t solve for lack of relationship through performance—religious or otherwise.

The joyful intimacy the Psalms display is a direct result of worship. Psalm 100 is the closing Psalm in a series (starting at Psalm 93) that renders praise to God because he is sufficiently worthy of all praise, affection, and hope. The first three verses of the Psalm focus on the spiritual act of service, the last two verses draw our attention to worship.

The separation of work from worship is a distinctly modern construct. The faithful have always viewed their work as worship—and been acutely aware that true worship requires labor. Work can thus be seen as our vocation and the labor of focus required for intimacy.

The pride and brokenness that mar our world are the result of worshipping unworthy objects—worship without focus. We bow before our own pride and chase after false gods to find fulfillment.

We are created anew each time we place ourselves before the creator and sustainer of this world. We rejoice in God not as our duty, but as our joy. In the words of the Psalmist, “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”

Prayer: A Reading
Jesus taught us saying: “…So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty.'” — Luke 17.10

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 45 (Listen – 4:50)
Psalm 99-101 (Listen – 2:48)

This Weekend’s Readings
Ezekiel 46 (Listen – 4:49) Psalm 102 (Listen – 2:45)
Ezekiel 47 (Listen – 4:08) Psalm 103 (Listen – 2:07)

Additional Reading
Read More about Praying Through the Stress of Work
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.

Read More about Seeing Work Through New Eyes
Those whose view of vocation has been redeemed, Ecclesiastes says, “eat and drink, and find enjoyment in all their hard work on earth during the few days of their life which God has given them, for this is their reward.”

Support our Work
Each month over 22,000 Park Forum email devotionals are read around the world. Support our readers with a monthly or a one time donation.

October 11, 2018October 30, 2024

Forging Faith :: Throwback Thursday

Psalm 98.6
With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

Reflection: Forging Faith :: Throwback Thursday
The Park Forum

The beauty of an orchestra is formed not only through the dedication of its members, but the forging of its instruments. Ductility—the ability to be shaped without losing strength—is essential to shaping the trumpet and horn that praise God in Psalm 98.

This image of formation is so striking, Augustine pauses in his reflections on the Psalms:

Ductile trumpets are of brass: they are drawn out by hammering. It is by hammering—by being beaten—you too shall be trumpets, drawn out unto the praise of God. You improve when in tribulation: tribulation is hammering, improvement is the being drawn out.

Job was a ductile trumpet, when suddenly assailed by the heaviest losses, and the death of his sons, become like a ductile trumpet by the beating of so heavy tribulation. He sounded like this: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

This is one of the most difficult teachings of Christianity: you are not yet perfect and must be shaped. This shaping is the foundation of how we thrive. It is not in spite of pain, but because of it, that we discover the strength, beauty, and joy we were created to display. Augustine concludes:

This ductile trumpet is still under the hammer. We have heard how he was drawn out; let us hear how Job sounded: “What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” O courageous, O sweet sound! Whom will that sound not awake from sleep? Whom will confidence in God not awake—to march to battle fearlessly against the devil; not to struggle with his own strength, but His who proves him.

See how even the apostle Paul was beaten with this very hammer: “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me.” He is under the hammer. Listen to how he speaks of it: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

His Maker wished to make this trumpet perfect; I cannot do so unless I draw it out. In weakness is strength made perfect. Hear now the ductile trumpet itself sounding as it should: “When I am weak, then am I strong.”

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Behold, God is my helper; it is the Lord who sustains my life. — Psalm 54.4

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 44 (Listen – 5:32)
Psalm 97-98 (Listen – 2:19)

Additional Reading
Read More about The Crucible of Suffering
There is a deep richness that comes to people who face suffering biblically. A key to this richness is a joy and a contentment that difficult experiences cannot steal.

Read More about Suffering for Our True Identity
John is direct with his readers—it is not our goal to get the world to like us. In fact, we should not be surprised when they hate us. Though a beloved author now, Madeleine L’Engle experienced what John meant and she might have added that we can’t even guarantee that other Christians will like us.

Support our Work
Each month over 22,000 Park Forum email devotionals are read around the world. Support our readers with a monthly or a one time donation.

September 28, 2018February 18, 2019

Learning to Pray :: Readers’ Choice

From John:
We have, this week, dipped our toes in the waters of Christian meditative prayer. This is only, however, one branch of the discipline of prayer. So we take the opportunity to look back at this Readers’ Choice post on learning to pray.

Prayer, like cultivation, is not natural. God created a wild, natural world. But he cultivated a park, a garden, for his relationship with us. May we work to cultivate a varied garden of prayer in which to walk with God daily.

Suggested by reader, Suzanne Coupe
I’m not naturally a “prayer warrior” and this devo brought to mind that there are many things I do that aren’t comfortable or pleasant within my earthly relationships, but I do them because I care about that person. My time in prayer with the LORD is an expression of how important He is to me, and sometimes that means putting aside what I want to do in order to do what He wants me to do…what will be best for the strength of our relationship and the glory of Jesus.

Posted February 21, 2018 with readings from Job 21 and 1 Corinthians 8.

Is my complaint directed to a human being? Why should I not be impatient? — Job 21.4

Reflection: Learning to Pray :: Readers’ Choice
The Park Forum

“This is a dangerous error,” warns Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “to imagine that it is natural for the heart to pray.” The great theologian, who lost his life in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, was no stranger to unanswered prayer. He wrote:

It can become a great torment to want to speak with God and not to be able to do it—having to be speechless before God, sensing that every cry remains enclosed within one’s own self, that heart and mouth speak a perverse language which God does not want to hear.

This may have contributed to the reason Bonhoeffer did not believe it was possible to pray without the power of God:

We confuse wishing, hoping, sighing, lamenting, rejoicing—all of which the heart can certainly do on its own—with praying. But in doing so we confuse earth and heaven, human beings and God. Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own. For that one needs Jesus Christ.

Not wanting “needs Jesus Christ” to devolve into mere platitude, Bonhoeffer explains how to pray the words of God—Scripture—through the power of God—Spirit:

Jesus Christ has brought before God every need, every joy, every thanksgiving, and every hope of humankind. In Jesus’ mouth the human word becomes God’s Word. When we pray along with the prayer of Christ, God’s Word becomes again a human word.

If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not, therefore, first ask what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ. We must ask how we can understand the Psalms as God’s Word, and only then can we pray them with Jesus Christ. Thus it does not matter whether the Psalms express exactly what we feel in our heart at the moment we pray.

Perhaps it is precisely the case that we must pray against our own heart in order to pray rightly. It is not just that for which we ourselves want to pray that is important, but that for which God wants us to pray. If we were dependent on ourselves alone, we would probably often pray only the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. But God wants it otherwise. Not the poverty of our heart, but the richness of God’s word, ought to determine our prayer.

Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalm 100.2

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

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 31 (Listen – 3:31)
Psalm 79 (Listen – 1:50)

This Weekend’s Readings
Ezekiel 32 (Listen – 5:30) Psalm 80 (Listen – 1:58)
Ezekiel 33 (Listen – 6:03) Psalm 81-82 (Listen – 2:36)

Additional Reading
Read More about Persistence in Prayer
When Paul says, “I’ll pray for you,” he actually follows through. May we share that same sense of commitment the next time we utter those simple words, “I’ll pray for you.”

Read More about Uniqueness of Prayer
Our prayer is unique. But this does not mean that it can be merely whimsical, without definite patterns and commitment.

Support our Work
Each month over 22,000 Park Forum email devotionals are read around the world. Support our readers with a monthly or a one time donation.

August 14, 2018February 18, 2019

The Enemy of Pleasure :: Readers’ Choice

Selected by reader, Godsbooklover, Fort Wayne, IN
I was quite taken by the idea that our obsession with pleasure is rooted in the sin of pride. For the believer, humility and gratitude are the antidote. Then every pleasure is a gift to enjoy, rather than an entitlement to judge.

Originally posted on October 13, 2017 with readings from 1 Kings 12 and Colossians 3.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. — Colossians 3.2

Reflection: The Enemy of Pleasure :: Readers’ Choice
The Park Forum

Only when a person is not dependent on an object or experience for pleasure are they truly free to enjoy it. We know this, of course, because things we’ve built anticipation for regularly find a way of letting us down. On the other hand, things for which we have little—or low—expectations find ways of impressing us greatly.

In response, some people cultivate perpetually low expectations toward everything and everyone. It’s a compensatory mechanism in which they seek to avoid life’s disappointments and, if all goes well, find themselves “pleasantly surprised.” This soothes the symptoms, but leaves the cause to fester.

The problem is not in the objects and experiences themselves, but our dependence on them to cultivate joy and happiness. It is another manifestation of the root of pride—our desire to derive primary satisfaction, pleasure, and identity from our personal experiences and achievements.

“True humility,” says Timothy Keller, in summary of C.S. Lewis, “is not thinking less of yourself or thinking more of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.” When our lives take on a posture of humility it affects not just our relationships with others, but our relationships with the objects and pleasures of this world.

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody.

Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.

If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all. — C.S. Lewis

The Christian posture toward the objects and pleasures of the world is neither asceticism nor hedonism. Instead, our attention, passions, and desires have been so captured by the gospel that we are free to enjoy the many pleasures of this world without falling in love with them. Boasting in the cross makes us humble toward the world.

Prayer: The Morning Psalm
Let me announce the decree of the Lord: he said to me, “You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.”— Psalm 2.7-8

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Prayers from The Divine Hours available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Jeremiah 42 (Listen – 3:44)
Psalm 18 (Listen – 5:47)

Additional Reading
Read More about Clutching Earthly Pursuits
Clutching earthly pursuits while attempting to spiritually self-regulate—is exactly what makes us miserable.

Read More about Idolatry of Identity
Virtue signaling through conspicuous consumption of the right brands is an established norm. We define our identity by what we support and what we disdain.

Readers’ Choice
We have a handful of spots left for your favorite posts of the year. Submit a Readers Choice post. Tell us about a post and what it meant to you.

Support our Work
Over 4,000 people every week read an email devotional from The Park Forum. Support our work with a monthly or a one time donation.

June 20, 2018February 18, 2019

Invitation

Scripture: Revelation 22.17
“The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”

Reflection: Invitation
The Park Forum

What is the purpose of Christian living? We know what it looks like when it’s done wrong. Moralism breeds guilt for failure, intolerance toward others, and pride in perceived successes. Rejection of morality and discipline erodes the transformative power of sacramental living. To understand the purpose we have to look toward the goal.

Like a masterfully arranged symphony, the final note of Scripture rings with wonder and beauty: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” Grace—and not just grace, but an invitation for others to come into grace. Gregory the Great observed:

Hear how John is admonished by the angelic voice, “let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’” He into whose heart the internal voice has found its way may, by crying aloud, draw others into where he himself is carried.

There are predictable ways a religious text could end: rules, admonition, veiled threats—yet the Christian Scriptures end with open arms. Charles Spurgeon believed that invitation, “come,” is the motto of the gospel:

The cry of the Christian religion is the simple word, “Come.” The Jewish law said, “Go, pay attention to your steps—to the path in which you walk. Go, and if break the commandments, and you shall perish; Go, and if keep them, and you shall live.”

The law was a dispensation of the whip, which drove men before it; the gospel is just of the opposite kind. It is the Shepherd’s dispensation.

The Shepherd goes before his sheep, and bids them follow, saying, “Come.” The law repels; the gospel attracts. The law shows the distance between God and man; the gospel bridges that distance and brings the sinner across the great fixed gulf which Moses could never bridge.

Evangelism is not an action, but the culmination of Christian living. As we cultivate Christian practices—personal devotion, service to the marginalized, and commitment to community—our lives, workplaces, and cities flourish.

In this way Christian living is sacramental. Devotion cultivates peace, peace flows—like living water—into a dry and thirsty world. Gregory the Great concludes:

For the Church dwells in the gardens, in that she keeps the cultivated nurseries of virtues in a state of inward greenness.

Prayer: The Request for Presence
Show us the light of your countenance, O God, and come to us. — Psalm 67.1

– Prayer from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 52 (Listen – 2:46)
Revelation 22 (Listen – 3:59)

Additional Reading
Read More about Liquid Wrath and Liquid Forgiveness
We exchange the cup of God’s wrath that we deserve for the cup of living water that Christ freely offers to us.

Read More about the Meaning of the Ascension
He has not taken his heart from us, nor his care from us, nor his interest from us: he is bound up heart and soul with his people.