Tag: deuteronomy

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Trusting God

As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer is but a presumptuous bravado.

―Thomas Lye

Scripture: Psalm 86.11

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.

Reflection: Trusting God
by Thomas Lye (c. 1675 C.E.)

To trust in God, is to cast our burden on the Lord, when it is too heavy for our own shoulder; to dwell “in the secret place of the Most High,” when we know not where to lay our heads on earth. It is to “look to our Maker,” and to “have respect to the Holy One of Israel;” to lean on our Beloved; to stay ourselves, when sinking, on the Lord our God.

In a word, trust in God is that high act or exercise of faith, whereby the soul, looking upon God, and casting of itself on his goodness, power, promises, faithfulness, and providence, is lifted up above carnal fears and discouragements, above perplexing doubts and disquietments. These acts are either for the obtaining and continuance of that which is good, or for the preventing or removing of that which is evil.

More particularly, there are three ingredients of trust in God:

1. A clear knowledge or right apprehension of God, as revealed in his word and works. Knowledge of God is of such necessity to a right trust, that it is put as a synonym for trust: “I will set him on high, because he hath known,” that is, trusted in, “my name.”

2. A full assent of the understanding, and consent of the will, to those divine revelations, as true and good, wherein the Lord proposes himself as an adequate object for our trust.

3. A firm and fixed reliance, resting, or recumbency of the whole soul on God. Or a firm persuasion, and special confidence of the heart, whereby a believer particularly applies to himself the faithful promises of God, and certainly concludes and determines with himself, that the Lord is able and willing to make good to him the good promises he hath made. This indeed is the very formality of trust; one of the highest and noblest acts of faith.

Prayer: The Request for Presence

Come to me speedily, O God. You are my helper and deliverer; Lord, do not tarry. —Psalm 70.5-6

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 4 (Listen – 7:22)
Psalm 86-87 (Listen – 2:36)

 

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After Anger

Yahweh’s plans are beyond humankind’s ability to comprehend, as they are more than the sand of the sea. They are like a dream; but, unlike a dream, God’s love is real.

―Willem A. Van Gemeren

Scripture: Psalm 85.4-5

Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us! Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?

Reflection: After Anger
The Park Forum

“The Lord goes from anger to anger,” theologian Willem A. Van Gemeren quips of the Psalms, “It seems as though [Israel] can do nothing to please him.” Some today would dismiss the anger of God in the Hebrew Scriptures as an outmoded view of the divine—as if the concept of God became more palatable by the first century C.E. Yet there seems to be more going on.

The ancient authors of Scripture drew from their environment, something Van Gemeren is sure to acknowledge:

The portrayal of Yahweh’s anger reflects the Near Eastern understanding of the fury of a king when his will is not obeyed or when his vassals rebel against his sovereignty. God’s anger is provoked by acts of omission, rebellion, subversion, or disobedience and is more than an emotional outburst.

Ancient political structure, however, was not the only driving force behind the ancient Israeli emphasis on God’s anger. Van Gemeren continues:

The psalms often reflect on anger. This preoccupation may seem abnormal to us, but anger is a theological concern. The psalmists invite us to deal with anger rather than skirt negative human emotions.

While modern readers may wish to avoid the issue of God’s anger—and, particularly, its effects—the ancients confronted it in order to deal with their own emotions toward a broken world. But they did not stop here. The single question the authors of scripture want to answer is about the effect of God’s anger: is God’s anger generative?

Anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is what we feel after our minds register injustice, loss, grief, and a host of other foundational emotions—and God is presented as no different. His anger is spurred in reaction to the worlds’ injustice, the loss of what humanity is designed for, and the grief he experiences in the pain of his creation.

The authors of scripture rejoice that not only is God’s anger restorative—not only does it generate justice for our world—but it is not his dominating emotion. “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

Prayer: The Greeting

Out of Zion, the perfect in its beauty, God reveals himself in glory. Let the heavens declare the righteousness of his cause, for God himself is judge.

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 3 (Listen – 4:33)
Psalm 85 (Listen – 1:25)

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Termination Point

To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanity

―C.S. Lewis

Scripture: Psalm 79.2

They have left the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild.

Reflection: Termination Point
The Park Forum

For the authors of scripture, heaven’s physical description comes secondary to the reality of heaven as the locus of God’s goodness, mercy, and grace. In the same way, hell’s location is secondary to the reality of hell as life apart from God.

“Damnation is the state of the human soul when it is cut off from God, and salvation is the state of the human soul when it is united with God,” explains Douglas Beyer. “It isn’t imposed on us by God from the outside, but arises from the nature of what God is.” (Beyer composed a wonderful summary of C.S. Lewis’ understanding of hell, from which many of Lewis’ quotes this week were drawn.)

Hell is the termination point for those who cut themselves off from God and are finally left with no other options. We see this supremely in the personification of evil—for whom hell was designed. “Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament,” C.S. Lewis writes in his Preface to Paradise Lost. “Certainly, he has no choice. He has chosen to have no choice. He has wished to ‘be himself,’ and to be in himself and for himself, and his wish has been granted.”

We underestimate how rejection of God builds until it consumes. In The Great Divorce Lewis reflects, “It begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticizing it. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will that mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no ‘you’ left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.”

Prayer: The Cry of the Church

O God, come to my assistance! O Lord, make haste to help me!

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Numbers 35 (Listen – 4:41)
Psalm 79 (Listen – 1:50)

This Weekend’s Readings
Numbers 36 (Listen – 2:15) Psalm 80 (Listen – 1:58)
Deuteronomy 1 (Listen – 6:27) Psalm 81-82 (Listen – 2:36)

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A Bible That Confronts

June26

Psalm 119.97
Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.

“Americans may love the Bible or loathe it,” wrote Ann Monroe in Mother Jones. “But for the most part, they read it the same (when they read it at all): as the manifesto of a God who has a lot of laws and a definite inclination to punish those who don’t follow them.” 

We may think that an authoritative text precludes intimacy, but a personal relationship requires someone who talks back. A one-sided relationship is exploitive, not personal. How can we pursue a relationship with God in which our will is crossed and our thoughts are contradicted?

The Psalmist celebrated the Word for its authority and ability to cross and contradict us. For the Lord’s wisdom transcends the wisdom of those from whom we traditionally seek it: “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.”

In Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney writes, “No Spiritual Discipline is more important than the intake of God’s Word. Nothing can substitute for it. There is simply no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of Scripture. The reasons for this are obvious. In the Bible God tells us about Himself, and especially about Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God. 

“The Bible unfolds the Law of God to us and shows us how we’ve all broken it. There we learn how Christ died as a sinless, willing Substitute for breakers of God’s Law and how we must repent and believe in Him to be right with God. In the Bible we learn the ways and will of the Lord. We find in Scripture how to live in a way that is pleasing to God as well as best and most fulfilling for ourselves. None of this eternally essential information can be found anywhere else except the Bible. Therefore if we would know God and be Godly, we must know the Word of God – intimately.”

Prayer
Lord, We need more than just words to survive. We need the Word himself. Since the Bible is the essential place to find him, we turn to it and long for a more disciplined intake of it. Make it our meditation all the day. Amen.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 31 (Listen – 4:57)
Psalm 119.97-120 (Listen)

Ancient Word in Modern Life
Part 5 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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TBT: Prevailing Prayer in Times of National Trouble

June25


Psalm 119.90
Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. 

TBT: Prevailing Prayer in Times of National Trouble | by John Collins (c. 1632–1687)

Human strength and human wisdom may be able to do little; the power and policy of enemies may be too hard for the wisdom and strength of the godly: but when you can do least yourselves, you may engage God, by prayer, to do most. “He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength.”

Think, how many times have the prayers of the saints prevailed with God in the like cases. Moses’s prayers prevailed to deliver Israel, when the Egyptians so closely pursued them: “Why do you cry to me?” and at other times. Asa’s prayer prevailed against Zerah and his Ethiopian army, and Jehoshaphat’s against the Ammonites.

And if prayer has been so prevalent, why may it not be so still? It is an old, tried means, which has not failed: do not say that these were more eminent saints, and so could do more with God by prayer than you can. You have the same God to pray to that they had, and he delights as much in prayer now as then he did, and can do as much for us as he could for them.

You pray with the same kind of faith that they did. Your faith is grounded on the same promises; they are still the same. The Mediator, who is to present your petitions to God, is still the same. His interest in those that fear him, and his concern for them, is still the same as it was. Then why wouldn’t prayer prevail as much now as formerly?

If you do prevail, it will be both your honor and comfort, to have been instrumental in keeping off public judgments, and procuring public mercies. So far as your prayers have been of use for the obtaining such mercies, so far they are your mercies, and you will have comfort in them. Any mercy is sweet, when obtained by prayer; much more, such as are of advantage to others as well as yourselves. 

If you should not prevail for public deliverance your prayers shall not be lost. They shall “return into your own bosom,” in deliverance for yourselves. It will be no small comfort to have done your duty and to suffer without the guilt of negligence. 

If you that are godly do not prevail in prayer, none else are likely to do it.

Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 30 (Listen – 3:12)
Psalm 119.73-96 (Listen)

*Today’s devotional is abridged, with updated language, from, “How The Religious Of A Nation Are The Strength Of It.”

Ancient Word in Modern Life
Part 4 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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