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Stories of Faith :: A Guided Prayer

Daniel 3.25
He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

Psalm 107.2
Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—those he redeemed from the hand of the foe

“Stories like that make a boy grow bold
Stories like that make a man walk straight”
— Rich Mullins, Boy Like Me, Man Like You

Reflection: Stories of Faith :: A Guided Prayer
By John Tillman

So many times we celebrate the miraculous escapes of the Bible. But we should not forget that even though Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego survived the furnace, they still died in exile as a part of an empire that murdered hundreds of thousands of their family members.

Likewise, we should not spiritualize the response of Nebuchadnezzar. He was not converted, nor did he set in place a government supportive of faith in the true God. He’s just as violent and murderous on behalf of Yahweh as he was in opposition to him.

The king’s declaration shows that he doesn’t understand. He threatens violence against those who speak against God, as if God’s reputation and name need defending by human means.

Nebuchadnezzar’s response is that of an ego-driven, violent, positional leader projecting his own needs onto God. When we place our hope in human government, this is what we can expect.

The only king we should celebrate is the one who appeared in the fire with those condemned.

Today, we close with a guided prayer using part of our reading from Psalm 107. As we tell our stories of faith, we celebrate every moment—the struggles, the losses, and the miraculous moments of victory.

Stories of Faith

Oh, Lord, remind us of your great deeds in our lives and in the lives of others.

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe

It is important for us—the redeemed—to tell our stories.
We tell them, Lord to celebrate the miraculous.
To laud the Lord of our salvation.
To praise the Prince who enters our struggles with us.

We do not celebrate these stories demanding similar outcomes.
We know and accept that in this world we will have trouble.

We celebrate victories because they show the world
a picture of the ultimate outcome of our lives,
despite the brokenness or current situation of our lives.

Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness,
prisoners suffering in iron chains,
because they rebelled against God’s commands
and despised the plans of the Most High.

No matter our sins, you call us to redemption.
No matter our wounds, you regenerate and strengthen us.
No matter our trials, you mercifully spare us.
No matter our losses, you grant us your victory.
No matter the manner of our death, we are assured of resurrection by the power of the slain Lamb of God.

He sent out his word and healed them;
he rescued them from the grave.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind.

Heal us, oh God. And allow us to tell your story.

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

– 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
Daniel 3 (Listen – 5:56)
Psalm 107 (Listen – 4:12)

Additional Reading
Read More Face Like Flint :: A Guided Prayer
In what ways are we willing to accept victory with Christ but not suffering?
Where do we reach for our swords, when Christ calls out, “No more of this!”…and heals the one we would attack? Are we willing to heal our enemies?

Read More Seeing the Lord :: Readers’ Choice
In the year of disappointment, loneliness, fear
in the year of confusion, desperation and chaos
I saw the Lord.

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Resisting in Faith

Daniel 2.14
When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.

Reflection: Resisting in Faith
By John Tillman

The early chapters of Daniel are popular teaching chapters because they show concrete examples of the successes that are possible when resisting an evil culture and an evil government.

But Daniel’s strategy is not one many today would embrace. Daniel embraces civility and service to his enemies. In today’s conflicts, the last thing our society wants is civility and no one wants to be caught associating with, much less serving or working with, the opposition.

Civility is considered by some as a tool only to be employed when one is in power. Those found guilty of politeness in today’s discourse are often accused of complicity and “numbered among the transgressors” when it comes to ideological loyalty.

Daniel embraced civility even when he was under the direct threat of death.

The Bible gives few details on Daniel’s confrontation with Arioch. But it is safe to say speaking to a man sent to kill you would be a tense moment. It was a tension that Daniel chose to diffuse with “wisdom and tact.”

In the midst of one of the most powerful and evil governments in history, Daniel understood and accepted that the exiles were and would remain at the mercy of the government’s actions. Their calling was to speak to power, not to strike at it.

Daniel doesn’t succeed by doing what all the other strategists and forecasters did. He doesn’t resist by deception, by violence, by falsehoods.

Daniel resists by doing something only a person of faith can do. He resists by demonstrating the power of his God through his actions. He resists by serving unconditionally. He resists by helping. He resists by taking action to save the lives of men who will eventually turn against him and conspire to throw him in a pit of lions.

Daniel lived undefiled, resisted the whims of an evil government, and influenced the course of an empire through simple faith and regular practice of spiritual disciplines.

Whatever we would resist, and whatever we would wish to change in our culture, we cannot do it using the worldly strategies that surround us.

We must, as Daniel did, turn to prayer, community, and faith as our source. Civility and service is the path that can differentiate us from our culture. What we say and what we do, if it is to be effective, must be guided by the wisdom gained through our spiritual disciplines.

Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth. — Psalm 46.11

– 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
Daniel 2 (Listen – 8:45)
Psalm 106 (Listen – 4:52)

Additional Reading
Read More about Redeeming Speech
Lips should never be red with the blood of honest men’s reputes, nor salved with malicious falsehoods. The faculty of speech becomes a curse when it is degraded into a mean weapon for smiting men behind their backs. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Read More about Abandoning Human Vengeance
As Christians, we have an opportunity to differentiate ourselves from culture every time vitriol spews. We must be the first to break the chain of retaliatory and violent rhetoric. We must abandon human vengeance before we can see divine justice.

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Undefiled at Heart

Daniel 1.8
…he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.

Reflection: Undefiled at Heart
By John Tillman

Pastors and teachers regularly turn to Daniel as an example of how to live undefiled in a culture that is radically opposed to faith.

Defilement, however, was a way of life for exiles. It was defiling to be a slave as every exile was. It was defiling to live among foreigners as every exile was forced to do. It was defiling to eat with foreigners as Daniel and his friends did. It was defiling to sleep with or marry foreigners as Esther did.

Consider that the story in today’s reading, about Daniel’s struggle to eat a diet of vegetables and water instead of the “rich food” from the king’s table, happens in the same country where Ezekiel begs God not to force him to defile himself by eating food cooked over human feces.

For Daniel and his friends, God gifts them with strength, health, and intelligence far beyond the other candidates, and this event is the beginning of their rise to prominence and power. For Ezekiel, God relents and allows him to cook his food over animal feces instead. It’s no wonder we teach about Daniel’s story more often.

I’ve never heard of a church doing an “Ezekiel fast” but “Daniel fasts” have enjoyed massive popularity. Some even suggest that this is how Christians should eat year round. It is clear that we’d all prefer Daniel’s kind of struggle to Ezekiel’s.

In a way, being personally defiled through their experience was a part of the exiles’ punishment from God and a path to their repentance and healing.

Our outer circumstances may not be in our control as exiles. We may be in service to an evil government as Daniel and his friends are. We may be sexually exploited as Esther was. We may be forced to swallow unclean things as Ezekiel was.

In all circumstances, we must seek God’s guidance as we attempt to live in way that is pleasing to him. And at times, like Daniel, we must beg for permission from governments and employers to follow our consciences. That the government may not relent, and we may be forced to eat what is given is a part of being an exile.

As we live as exiles we must seek God to determine, as Daniel did, where the lines may be drawn for us and how we can best adapt to keep our hearts pure, even when everything we touch or interact with in our culture is defiled.

Prayer: The Morning Psalm
Mark those who are honest; observe the upright; for there is a future for the peaceable…The Lord will help them and rescue them; h will rescue them from the wicked and deliver them, because they seek refuge in him. — Psalm 37.37, 40

– 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
Daniel 1 (Listen – 3:22)
Psalm 105 (Listen – 4:02)

Additional Reading
Read More about In Denial about Greed and Power
If there is anything that can still be shocking in today’s world, it is that we still don’t fully admit or understand the destructive nature of the sins of greed and power.

Read More about The Idol of Immorality, Impurity, and Greed
Paul reveals to us that what is truly at the root of sexual immorality, is exactly the same thing that is at the root of greed—selfishness.

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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.

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Christ: Temple, River, and City

Ezekiel 48.35
“And the name of the city from that time on will be: the Lord is there.”

Reflection: Christ: Temple, River, and City
By John Tillman

Ezekiel spends a huge amount of his text describing the terrors, the corruption, and injustice of the city of Jerusalem and its Temple. Then, in his final chapters, he gives us a vision of a new temple, a river, and a city to come.

This temple and city Ezekiel describes bear little resemblance to the temple he knew or the temples to come in the future. In just one example, in chapter 47, Ezekiel describes a river that flows from the restored Temple. The river grows deeper and wider, until it can no longer be crossed. When this river meets the Salt Sea, the Dead Sea, it makes it alive again, bringing back to life not only the aquatic life, but the entire ecological system.

If Ezekiel’s visions sound familiar, it may be because, in Revelation, John’s visions of God’s city and the river flowing from it are remarkably similar.

Just because God’s city and temple have only been seen by visionaries and prophets, doesn’t mean they aren’t real or accessible to us today. John and Ezekiel may not intend to show us a physical temple or city that we will ever see on earth, but rather something else entirely.

Perhaps the temple of Ezekiel has never been seen on Earth because it is not a temple built by human hands. Perhaps the temple Ezekiel sees is the same one Christ told the Pharisees could be destroyed and rebuilt in three days.

Christ himself is our temple. He is the gate, the doorway, through which we enter to worship. He is our priest, he is the offerer of the only sacrifice capable of covering our sin and our only mediator before God.

Christ is our river, flowing as the Holy Spirit into our lives, into our cities, into our dead, dry, and poisoned environments. His river-like spirit brings life to what is dead and healing to what is sickened by the waste products of our sins’ industrious and destructive revolution.

Christ is our city. He is our refuge and rest—our strong tower and protected place—our park of peace in the midst of a frantic and fracturing world.

We say, “amen” to these visions.
May we regularly enter the peace of this city, be nourished by this river, and be made righteous in this temple.
May the temple, the city, and the river of these visions come.
May we dwell in the city called, “The Lord is there.”

Prayer: The Request for Presence
Let those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; let those who love your salvation say forever, “Great is the Lord!” — Psalm 70.4

– 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 48 (Listen – 6:15)
Psalm 104 (Listen – 3:37)

Additional Reading
Read More about Last Priest Standing
We can rest in the security of knowing that our eternal priest ,Jesus the Christ, is forever working for the salvation of those who seek him and he is alive to intercede before God on our behalf.

Read More about A High Priest Like No Other
Our great high priest Jesus has provided each of us with access to God’s throne of grace in any time of need. May we live our lives in faithfulness and gratitude for the great high priest who redeems.

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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.

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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.