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A Prayer for the Hurting :: Readers’ Choice

I’ve kept this one handy to read and re-read, each time bringing me to tears—partly because it reminds me of God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm toward His people in tough times and partly because He has allowed me to be one of His people. I never want to stop being amazed at how God takes the very worst and makes it into something so much greater and more beautiful than we could ever imagine. — Sam

Readers’ Choice (Originally published March 31, 2016)

By Severus of Thrace

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. — Colossians 1:24

*Editor’s note: Severus was a priest in third-century Greece. Variations of this prayer are believed to have been used by the priest himself, and many who followed him, in preparation for martyrdom. 

To all who are tossed by the waves, you are the calm of the harbor; you are the hope of the hopeful. You are the health of the sick, you relieve the needy and guide the blind. To those exposed to punishment on every count, you are merciful; to the weary, a wall; in darkness, light.

You created the land, you rule the sea, you set every element in its place; a word from you and the heavens, the stars, and all else was made, and made perfect.

You kept Noah safe and gave wealth to Abraham, let Isaac go free and provided a victim in his stead, wrestled with Jacob, to his sweet confusion, took Lot away from the accursed land of Sodom.

Moses you let see you; to Joshua, son of Nun, you gave prudence.

In your mercy you went with Joseph on his way and brought your people out of the land of Egypt, leading them to the land they had been promised. You protected the three children in the furnace: your dew—Majesty—flowed over them and the flames could not touch them.

You closed the lions’ mouths, gave life, gave food to Daniel.

You did not allow Jonah to perish in the depths of the see and when the cruel sea-beast caught him in its jaws, you let him escape unhurt.

You gave Judith the weapons she needed; Susanna you saved from the unjust judges.

Esther had her triumph from you; you procured the downfall of Haman. You brought us from darkness to eternal light, Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, light yourself unquenchable, you who gave me the sign of the cross, the sign of Christ.

I beg you not to decide, Lord, that I am unworthy of these sufferings that my brethren have been allowed to undergo. Let me share the crown with them; let me be with them in glory, as I have been with them in prison. Let me rest with them, as I have confessed your glorious name with them.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 29 (Listen – 5:44)
Mark 15 (Listen – 5:16)

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Peace in a Restless World :: Readers’ Choice

I really like the quote from Abraham Joshua Heschel with an analogy comparing hunger for religion with hunger for food. Very insightful to give us a sense of how we were made for God. — Steven

Readers’ Choice (Originally published April 15, 2015)

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. — Psalm 23.1-3

“Depth and strength underlie the simplicity of this psalm,” observes Derek Kidner in his book, Psalms. Often quoted in times of trial and suffering, Psalm 23 offers hope to the faithful.

The reality of the peace that comes from God is far from naive and simplistic. In his book Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Abraham Joshua Heschel asserts, “It is hard to dismiss the popular concept that religion is a function of human nature, an avenue in the wild estate of civilization. We have been indoctrinated with the idea that religion is man’s own response to a need, the result of craving for immortality, or the attempt to conquer fear.”

Heschel, who walked arm-in-arm with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Al, knew this at a far deeper level than most of us have experienced. “Many people assume,” he continues, “that we feed our body to ease the pangs of hunger, to calm the irritated nerves of the empty stomach. As a matter of fact, we do not eat because we feel hungry but because the intake of food is essential for the maintenance of life, supplying the energy necessary for the various functions of the body. Hunger is the signal for eating, its occasion and regulator, not its true cause.”

“To restrict religion to the realm of human endeavor, or consciousness would imply that a person who refuses to take notice of God could isolate himself from the Omnipresent,” Heschel expounds. “Religion is not a cursory activity. What is going on between God and man is for the duration of life.”

To say, as the Psalmist does, that “I lack nothing” is to acknowledge the full peace of God. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom which points to the holistic peace which is a result of the presence and pleasure of God.

“Peace is not escape; its contentment is not complacency,” Kidner concludes: “There is readiness to face deep darkness and imminent attack, and the climax reveals a love which homes towards no material goal but to the Lord Himself.”

Prayer — Fill us, dear Father, with your peace. Renew our hearts and engage our minds. You are our hope and our future, and we long for your peace to make right all that we suffer in this world.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 28 (Listen – 3:05)
Mark 14 (Listen – 8:37)

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Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

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Stories of the Oppressed :: Readers’ Choice

The night before we had been discussing how our government leaders should respond to the Syrian refugee crisis. The conversation was tense as we found ourselves on different ends of the political spectrum. This devotional came at just the right time to remind us of our shared Christian call to love, empathize, show compassion, and demonstrate the faithfulness of Christ. This became our prayer for our leaders. — Hillary

Readers’ Choice (Originally published November 20, 2015)

What if, while America was asking questions about safety and risk management, Christians were asking, What is God doing? — David Crabb

How quickly our global discourse has changed since the body of 3-year old Aylan washed ashore seven weeks ago. It was the same week 11 other Syrian refugees met a similar fate, but this struck the world differently. “Image of Drowned Syrian Boy Echoes Around World,” proclaimed the Wall Street Journal. Echoes fade into darkness far too quickly.

A political firestorm ignited this week as 26 U.S. state governors responded to the horrific attacks in Paris by banning refugees — solely on basis of race — from entering their states. One state leader even praised the systematic racism that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor. State-sponsored internment camps were later deemed unnecessary and described as having stemmed from “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” in a law passed by President Reagan.

As for Paris, The Washington Post reports that, “All the identified assailants are so far citizens of European Union countries.” Yet because one of the attackers was carrying a forged Syrian passport, the tides of favor have turned against Syrians fleeing terrorism in their own country.
Currently 1 of every 122 people alive on earth are displaced. Over 1.1 million people sought asylum last year — 25,300 of whom were children unaccompanied or separated from their parents.

According to data from the United Nations, this is the largest number of displaced people since WWII. And though 43 percent of the Syrian population is displaced the U.N. notes, “Major new displacement was also seen in Africa – notably in Central African Republic and South Sudan.”

This can be a difficult subject for Christians seeking to live faith in the modern world. The mandate to embrace displaced people is foundational to both the Old and New Testaments. Exodus, Leviticus, Zechariah, Mark, and Luke, among numerous others, all instruct the faithful to welcome outsiders. Jesus, teaching in Matthew, goes as far as saying that those who do not welcome, feed, and care for “strangers” are not welcome in the kingdom (a similar prophecy is found in Malachi).
The Scriptures are the stories of refugees embraced at great risk and cost. Indeed our posture is to be like Christ, who offered his love while we were still enemies of his kingdom and its leader.

International Association for Refugees — which works with churches to seek the welfare of forcibly displaced people in Europe, Africa, and the US — observes that, “From beginning to end, Scripture is filled with stories of forcefully displaced people.” They chronicle examples of God’s embrace regardless of the reason for displacement — sin (Adam and Eve), invading kings (Lot), human trafficking (Joseph), famine (Jacob), exile (Daniel), political persecution (Jesus), or religious persecution (most early church leaders).

The stories of the displaced in our own world are harrowing. Last month The New Yorker profiled Ghaith, a 22-year-old Syrian law student who was working two jobs while studying to become a judge.Ultimately he had to flee Damascus, treacherously crossing 10 boarders before finding refuge in Sweden.

“All my friends were either dead or gone,” Ghaith reflected. His reasons for leaving, however, weren’t just self-preservation. The young Syrian knew he would face a mandatory military enlistment upon graduation. “The thing that frightened me most was that I would become a victim of the civil war — or, even worse, a killer in it.” Ghaith fled to avoid being forced to slaughter his neighbors. And while he counts himself fortunate, he will never be the same:
I made it, while thousands of others didn’t. Some died on the way, some died in Syria. Every day, you hear about people drowning. Just think about how much every Syrian is suffering inside Syria to endure the suffering of this trip… In Greece, someone asked me, ‘Why take the chance?’ I said, ‘In Syria, there’s a hundred-per-cent chance that you’re going to die. If the chance of making it to Europe is even one per cent, then that means there is a one-per-cent chance of your leading an actual life.’

Ghaith’s story is one of hundreds that The U.N. Refugee Agency, Refugee Action, The Washington Post, and others are tracking. These accounts open up our ability to empathize, but empathy can be quickly sapped up by fear-mongering.

In what could be considered an act of national irony, the top new song in Apple Music this week in the U.S. — while political commentary turns against the marginalized and oppressed — is a rendition of Great is Thy Faithfulness from the TV show, The Voice.
“Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Those most vulnerable will suffer unimaginably as our world writhes under the weight of evil. And complexities of the current crisis demand more than an either/or response to those seeking shelter from the storm. Our country needs Christian leaders asking questions like those David Crabb asked this week on Desiring God, “What if, through the senseless evil of civil war, God was bringing unreached people groups to our cities? What if, through great tragedy, God was bringing about the triumph of the gospel?”

My prayer is that our leaders (political, religious, and others) would enter into dialogue, taking action to care for the broken and continuing to protect our nation. May we echo the faithfulness of Christ, may we not cast a shadow of turning, may our compassion fail not — this is how a wounded world will experience the love of Christ.

The Weekend Reading List

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 25 (Listen – 6:12)
Mark 11 (Listen – 3:59)

This Weekend’s Readings
Jeremiah 26 (Listen – 4:04) Mark 12 (Listen – 6:10)
Jeremiah 27 (Listen – 3:52) Mark 13 (Listen – 4:32)

Get Involved

Photo Credit: Mstyslav Chernov, UPAF.

This piece was co-published with OnFaith.

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Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

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Taxes and Worship :: Readers’ Choice

Given our perpetual engagement with politics at present, your article was an excellent reminder of what we treasure. — Steve

Readers’ Choice (Originally published July 12, 2016)

[Jesus replied,] “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” — Matthew 22.21

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” Though the Pharisees’ question was designed to ensnare Jesus, they likely formed it from legitimate concerns in their day. How should a faithful person live under the rule of a pagan government?

The stakes couldn’t be higher during Jesus’ day. Taxes were more than financial support of corrupt systems, they were worship. In Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus Lois Tverberg reimagines Jesus’ interaction with the religious elite:

As the priest’s hand fumbled through the folds of his robe to withdraw a coin, guffaws arose from the crowd. As the shiny disk glinted in the sun, the realization dawned on him that he had just revealed his own hypocrisy. Denarii were strictly forbidden from the Temple, because they bore Caesar’s blasphemous claim to be divine.

Some purists, like the Essenes, refused to touch or even look at this particular coin. But the cleric had no qualms about carrying these pagan money pieces in his pocket. The man’s face reddened as he saw how easily the Galilean rabbi exposed his insincerity.

Now it was Jesus’ disciples turn to smirk. With a look of feigned innocence, Jesus inquired, “Whose image, whose likeness is on this coin?” Caesar’s, of course. It was precisely that image that made the coin forbidden in the Temple. No graven images were permitted, especially not the likeness of an emperor who insisted that he be worshiped as deity. Caesar’s taxes were not just about financial support, but about religious veneration. You were honoring the “god” Caesar by paying tribute to him.

In his reply we see the length at which Jesus believed the words the Spirit would inspire Paul to write: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

More importantly we see that Christ’s concern was far greater than our worldly battles. Tverberg concludes:

Caesar’s face is stamped on the coin because the coins are Caesar’s. They belong to him, they bear his image. Jesus was pointing out that because God had stamped his image on us, God’s reign was far beyond anything Caesar could imagine—it is over all of humanity. Humans are God’s coins, meant to be spent on his world, proclaiming God’s kingdom wherever we circulate.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 24 (Listen – 1:54)
Mark 10 (Listen – 6:42)

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Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

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The Angry Watchmaker :: Readers’ Choice

Pardon the pun, but I LOVEd your 1 Corinthians 13 remix. Because of it, I’m starting to look for ways to make sometimes-too-familiar Scripture passages part of my heart-song and not just one more bit of knowledge in my head. — Sam

Readers’ Choice (Originally published May 25, 2016)

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. — 1 John 4.8

In the mid 18th century William Paley formulated what is known as the ‘Watchmaker Argument.’ Though Paley’s analogy was meant to provide a God-centered explanation of scientific creation, “There cannot be design without a designer,” it greatly impacted the trajectory of theology in the western world.

The Watchmaker Analogy described creation as an intricate and complex pocket watch. God crafted the heavens and the earth, humans and culture, beauty and brilliance—he set everything in motion—and now sits, detached from his creation, in heaven. Paley explained:

The watch must have had a maker: there must have existed, at some time and at some place or another, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it: who comprehended its construction and designed its use.

The equivalence of the divine with a master craftsman—as fastidious as he is devoid of personal interaction with his creation after it is set in motion—guided many of America’s founding fathers, and continues to shape our culture’s de facto understanding of God.

Later American theology, perhaps in an overcorrection, depicts God as intimately involved—but only because his intense anger demands he wage war against humankind. Entire branches of modern theology start and end with God’s anger. Heaven, in this way of thinking, is the place where God fumes, standing ready to lash out on his categorically unruly creation.

Sin, and God’s anger toward it, are essential parts of Christian theology—how can God be good if he doesn’t bring justice? But God’s anger toward evil is neither the foundation of the Christian story, nor the culmination of it.

Heaven is not a distant place where God sits aloof and fuming; Heaven is where God’s character is in full affect. Scripture confesses that 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 tells us who God is. The famous passage on love could be paraphrased:

God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy or boast. God is not arrogant. God is not rude. God does not insist on his own way. God is not irritable. God is not resentful. God does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. God bears all things for his children. God believes all things about his children. God hopes all things for his children. God endures all things for his children.

God’s love never ends.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 23 (Listen – 7:13)
Mark 9 (Listen – 6:16)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.