The Park Forum - Cultivating sustainable faith through Bible reading, reflection, and prayer. -

July 12, 2019July 10, 2025

Creator of Worlds :: Worldwide Prayer

Psalm 148.1-4
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.

Reflection: Creator of Worlds :: Worldwide Prayer
By John Tillman

Scripture tells us that creation groans to be released from sin. If the beauty and wonder of creation is what shines through despite its being shackled with sin, how much more beautiful may it be when all has been restored?

And…if creation is still capable of beauty and wonder through its groaning and pain, so much the more are we. We are not mere rocks that cry out, but God’s children whose mouths are filled with ordained praise.

We are not trees that clap our hands with the breeze but God’s own family who celebrate the grace of God our Father even with our faces set firmly against a blowing gale.

With joy, we join this prayer from Christian brothers and sisters in Jamaica, praising and calling on the Almighty God, creator of all worlds!

Creator of Worlds
Prayer for the preservation of creation from Jamaica

Almighty God: Creator of all worlds!

We honor you for the marvels of your creation, and thank you for that part of it which is our home— the mountains, the green fields, and the sea— the abundance and energy of life in us and around us.

We confess that we have often forgotten that the world is yours and so we have misused and abused your gifts, causing distress and pain to others and to ourselves.

Out of your forgiving grace—hear us now as we pray for healing in our world.

Remember those who behold but cannot appreciate your wonderful world and those who abuse and deface its beauty—that they may discover the joy of tending the garden of the Lord.

Remember those who squander and waste resources you have entrusted to them, but are not concerned that others are starving.

Remember those who respect not life, your precious gift, in themselves and in others, and who from greed, or anger, or malice destroy human life without pity or fear.

Remember those who bear rule in communities and nations, acting with arrogance and without wisdom—that they may know that power is a trust for which they must give an account to you the only Absolute Ruler. May they in humility exercise the stewardship you have allotted them. May their labors promote peace and prosperity among the peoples of our troubled lands.

Oh Lord, help us all to be good stewards of this beautiful universe your mighty hand has brought into being.

In Jesus’ great name.

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

Prayer: The Greeting
For your Name’s sake, O Lord, forgive my sin, for it is great. — Psalm 25.10

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

Today’s Readings
Joshua 16-17 (Listen – 5:13)
Psalm 148 (Listen – 1:28)

This Weekend’s Readings
Joshua 18-19 (Listen – 9:59), Psalm 149-150 (Listen – 1:36)
Joshua 20-21 (Listen – 6:58), Acts 1 (Listen – 3:58)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

R eaders’ Choice Submissions

It is once again time for us to seek out the voices of our readers and hear from you about posts from the past eleven months that have challenged and comforted you and helped you find new meaning in the scriptures.

Readers’ Choice posts will be republished during the month of August and periodically throughout the Fall.

Follow the link to fill out the form. Feel free to fill out the form multiple times for multiple submissions. Please limit your submissions to posts published this calendar year, between September of 2018 and today.

For any questions about The Park Forum, or to make suggestions of posts via email, contact John Tillman at john@theparkforum.org

Read more about Overgrown by the Gospel
May the gospel make ruins of our pride and selfishness. May we be overgrown by the gospel.

Overgrown by the Gospel

Read more about Cultivation Means Tending
The gospel is a seed from the first garden, the garden of Eden. The seed of the woman, Jesus himself, is our salvation and we plant this seed in our own hearts.

Cultivation Means Tending

July 11, 2019July 8, 2025

No Princes :: A Guided Prayer

Psalm 146.3
Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.

Reflection: No Princes :: A Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

How many believers veil their trust in men as trust in God? This can cause problems in two ways.

In the first, it can cause otherwise faithful people to bend over backward to defend a corrupt leader because to admit that the leader failed or that corruption was present would reflect badly on God’s work. Or it might even mean that the man was never “God’s man” in the first place and we had been duped by him. Unable to admit this, we rally to support and deny any accusation or attack, deaf to evidence or appeal.

The second is, in a way, the equal and opposite reaction. It causes people to believe that they must abandon faith in God because of a leader who broke faith or gave into corruption or abused his power. (It is almost always a man who does this…) Unable to separate their faith from the identity of the leader, they abandon faith.

In both of these cases, the followers’ faith was never in God in the first place.

Let us pray using some of the words of Psalm 146, asking God to protect our faith from even resting a little finger on the unworthy foundation of princes or kings or leaders. May our faith be built solely and solidly upon Jesus, his cross of suffering, and his glorious resurrection.

No Princes
Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.

The princes of this land cannot save us, nor do they intend to.
Their fine bracelets are shackles.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Even the greatest of princes will die, will fall, will fail.
Their plans will come to nothing and that nothing will come to those who trusted in them.

There is only one prince we must serve—the Prince of Peace…

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free
The Lord gives sight to the blind,
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
The Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

May we befriend the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.
And may we live to see the ways of the wicked frustrated, the chains of the prisoners fall, the blind lead us on with new sight, the bowed down rise up to run.

Prayer: The Greeting
My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody. — Psalm 57.7

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

Today’s Readings
Joshua 14-15 (Listen – 9:20)
Psalm 146-147 (Listen – 3:09)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

R eaders’ Choice Submissions

Read more about God’s Kingdom Versus God’s Reign
As Christians today, we are often tempted, as the Israelites were, to put faith in shaping society through the exertion of governmental power.

God’s Kingdom Versus God’s Reign

Read more about The Commission of Truth
Whenever the light of truth shines, may we never join in trying to cover up or deny what is revealed.

The Commission of Truth

July 10, 2019July 7, 2025

Praying as Music

Psalm 145.21
My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

From John:
One of the reasons we read Psalms every year in our two-year reading plan is that it teaches us so much about prayer. It is not that we should copy the psalms, although reading them as our own is a valuable practice. As Charles Spurgeon says of this psalm, we should make our own music in prayer: “Let each Christian reader present his own praise unto the Lord, and call it by his own name. What a wealth of varied praise will thus be presented through Christ Jesus!”

For our reflection today we turn to the conclusion of the book we have often drawn prayers from for our Worldwide Prayer series, Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world. The conclusion is written by the editor, Dr. Tony Cupit, and, similar to Spurgeon’s challenge, calls us to join our prayers musically in a worldwide, Spirit-empowered unity.

May it be so.

Reflection: Praying as Music
By Tony Cupit

If music is a universal language, prayer can be similarly described. Prayer is humankind’s universal language of love to God, a song of praise to our Maker, a cry of anguish for our sin, a note of pleading for our needs, an expression of thanksgiving for all God’s wondrous grace. And prayer is a whole lot more. We join as a fellowship of Christ’s followers to lift our hearts in prayer.

And prayer produces a beautiful union, a harmony between God and humanity. Before we begin to sing our song of love to God in prayer, we realize that in an amazing way God is already waiting for us to speak, to listen, to pray. This interaction between God and us, we call prayer. And always this duet is part of a glorious symphony as we join our prayer to God with fellow believers.

All around the world, God’s people sing an anthem of praise to God. Prayers—songs of worship and praise—are offered in this booklet so we can all enjoy heavenly music, duets, ensembles, choirs, congregations, whose music soars heavenward. These become an expression of reverence, of awe and wonder, to our Creator God whose mystery is wonderfully intriguing, to God’s Son whose person is beautifully enchanting and to God’s Holy Spirit whose presence is fiercely challenging and gently reassuring.

Whether we pray as a duet, a trio, a quartet, or a choir, may our worship in prayer be harmonious, melodious, clear and constant—for it was Jesus who taught us to pray, “yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever.”

*Excerpt from the conclusion of Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
May you be blessed by the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. — Psalm 124.8

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

Today’s Readings
Joshua 12-13 (Listen – 8:18)
Psalm 145 (Listen – 2:19)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

R eaders’ Choice Submissions

Read more about Prayer from the Cave
When we read the Psalms, we observe masters at prayer. If we read with more than a passing glance we can see their technique well enough to improve our own.

Prayer From the Cave

Read more about Hope Still Rises :: Worldwide Prayer
May the church follow Christ’s footsteps as he moves to help those affected by these persistent signs of the sinfulness and greed of our world.

Hope Still Rises :: Worldwide Prayer

July 9, 2019July 7, 2025

Breath, Reconsidered

Psalm 144.3-4
Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
mere mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
their days are like a fleeting shadow.

John 3.5-8
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Reflection: Breath, Reconsidered
By John Tillman

We rightly think of the psalmist comparing us to breath as humbling. But not everything that humbles humiliates. When humbled we are prepared to be lifted up, by God.

In Aramaic and Greek the word for “Spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” is the same word. This makes Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus one in which we must carefully attune our ears to context. Jesus is purposefully mixing his meanings. As Eugene Peterson rhetorically asks in his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, “What’s being talked about here, breathing, or weather, or God?”

Although the length of a breath may be a humbling downside, perhaps, there is also an upside.

Breath, Reconsidered
Lord, what are we that you care for us?
We are like a breath.

Like a breath, Lord, we pass from the earth.
Like a breath, Lord, insubstantial we seem.
Like a breath, Lord, some deep and some shallow.
Like a breath, Lord, we dissipate in the breeze.

But you gave us breath,
Your mouth on Adam’s lips.
And you redeemed breath
When Christ first drew it in
And you received his breath,
When his Spirit he released
He gave that Spirit to us
When on the disciples he breathed…

We are Adam’s first breath,
His first breath, re-breathed.

We are like a breath, we are a beginning
We are like a breath the first sign of life
We are like a breath, divine inspiration
We are like a breath, a baby’s first cry
We are the breath, of a worker,
drawn to take strength

We are the breath, of a mother,
that can warm frigid hands
We are the breath, of the preacher,
whose voice carries a dream
We are the breath, of a singer,
whose song fills the land

Breath sustains symphonies
Breath extinguishes candles
Breath ignites embers
Breath powers prophets
Breath connects lovers
Breath fills balloons
Breath is life

Breath serenades
Breath enlightens
Breath enlivens
Breath laughs
Breath shouts
Breath prays
Breath fills
Breath comes
Breath goes

Lord, what are we that you care for us?
We are like a breath.

Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. — Psalm 95.1-2

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

Today’s Readings
Joshua 11 (Listen – 3:52)
Psalm 144 (Listen – 1:56)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more poetry: Accepting Jesus
She takes within her body
The cure for the sickness of sin
She gives the maker of the Garden
Tiny feet to walk earth again.

Accepting Jesus

Read more poetry: He Stoops to Raise
He strips himself.
He lays aside
His Heaven
His throne
His clothes
His life

He Stoops to Raise

July 8, 2019July 6, 2019

Prayer From the Cave

Psalm 142.1-2
I cry aloud to the Lord;
I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.
I pour out before him my complaint;
before him I tell my trouble.

Reflection: Prayer From the Cave
By John Tillman

Watching a skilled athlete, chef, or performer may be entertainment for the masses but can be a master class for the observant. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

When we read the Psalms, we observe masters at prayer. If we read with more than a passing glance we can see their technique well enough to improve our own. Like someone analyzing the handgrip of a pinch-hitter may improve his own swing, we can analyze how tightly the psalmist grips the hand of God and do likewise. Like someone noticing the way a champion tennis player shifts her feet in the instant before the serve may adjust his own return technique, we can detect the psalmist’s shift from self-focused complaining to kingdom minded proclamation and train our hearts to move in a new way.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his commentary on Psalm 142 notes the importance of being instructed in prayer in this manner:

“This maschil is written for our instruction. It teaches us principally by example how to order our prayer in times of distress. Such instruction is among the most needful, practical, and effectual parts of our spiritual education. He who has learned how to pray has been taught the most useful of the arts and sciences. The disciples said unto the Son of David, ‘Lord, teach us to pray’ and here David gives us a valuable lesson by recording his own experience as to supplication from beneath a cloud.”

We have but to watch and read the Psalms with careful observation and our own prayers may be approached with new energy, new attitudes, and new aptitudes.

Prayer does not come easier in dark times, but we may feel it does since we more quickly and easily turn to it in distress. Spurgeon also notes that caves, such as the one this psalm is written from, make excellent places to pray:

“Caves make good closets for prayer; their gloom and solitude are helpful to the exercise of devotion. Had David prayed as much in his palace as he did in his cave, he might never have fallen into the act which brought such misery upon his later days.”

May we pray in our caves.
May we pray in our palaces.
May we pray in our soul cages, and pray for those in physical cages.
May we not allow any earthly light to keep us from seeking an inner, humble cave to pray in.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
“Because the needy are oppressed, and the poor cry out in misery, I will rise up,” says the Lord, “And give them the help they long for.” — Psalm 12.5

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

Today’s Readings
Joshua 10 (Listen – 7:23)
Psalm 142-143 (Listen – 2:35)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about The Stretching Arm of Salvation
We pray on behalf of those suffering worldwide, but we remember with special focus those inside our own borders who are suffering now the sting of unjust treatment and the careless disregard of the powerful.

The Stretching Arm of Salvation :: A Guided Prayer

Read more about Prayer from the Belly of the Beast
Prayer and thankfulness seem natural around a table of friends and family. But prayer can be even more powerful in the dark places of our lives.

Prayer from the Belly of the Beast