Scripture Focus: 1 Chronicles 7.21-24
Ezer and Elead were killed by the native-born men of Gath, when they went down to seize their livestock. 22 Their father Ephraim mourned for them many days, and his relatives came to comfort him. 23 Then he made love to his wife again, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. He named him Beriah, because there had been misfortune in his family. 24 His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth Horon as well as Uzzen Sheerah. 

Hebrews 11.13-16
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. 

Reflection: Sheerah the City Builder
By John Tillman

Most readers probably don’t remember Sheerah because her only mention is in a genealogy. Genealogies typically go father to son, father to son. Mentions of females are notable.

Genealogies seem boring to modern readers. Name after name parades down the page (often names we have difficulty pronouncing) and we just don’t see the point. 

The extreme individualism of our age is one reason for this boredom. We don’t typically feel connected to our ancestors. We see ourselves as solo artists or heroes, not a part of a whole. However, genealogies go beyond record-keeping. They tell stories.

Reading these passages was a way to re-experience the stories of those mentioned. Readers knew the stories from the other scriptures and the prophets. Their memories would light up as they read even just the names. Like a cameo of a Marvel character appearing briefly in a post-credits scene, these lists of names have exciting tidbits for those with the patience to read them.

The miniature stories we find in genealogies are hints of a larger tale. They are like open windows installed in a stairway, and it is worth pondering what the architect, the writer of the genealogy, hoped we would see.

Sheerah is a leader and architect. She built multiple cities, one of which bore her name. The other cities were twin cities on a border between two Israelite tribes: Ephraim and Benjamin. Upper Beth-Horan and Lower Beth-Horan, were not typical farming settlements. They were extremely important militarily and as part of the country’s religious life. 

Beth-Horan guarded an important ascent toward Jerusalem and was a city dedicated to the Levites amidst those tribes. The “upper” part of the city was Ephraim’s and the “lower” part was Benjamin’s. Levites from these cities would serve in Jerusalem’s Temple on a rotating basis.

The writer of Hebrews says all the faithful long for another land, another city. This includes the men and women listed in the genealogy of faith called the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11. 

Our genealogy of faith is full of imperfect, broken, and flawed humans leading to Jesus. God is not ashamed to be called their God and he is not ashamed to be ours either. We are not alone in our walk of faith. Connection to and knowledge of our “cloud of witnesses” can inspire more Sheerahs to build cities leading others to God’s city.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Your statutes have been like songs to me wherever I have lived as a stranger. — Psalm 119.54

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

Today’s Readings
1 Chronicles 7-8 (Listen – 9:04)
Hebrews 11 (Listen – 6:22)

Read more about No Such Thing as God Forsaken
May we not lose hope in our God or hope for our cities.

Read more about Faith of the Flawed
The purpose of this passage is to demonstrate how ordinary people overcame difficult situations through their faith in God.

From John: 
Read the Bible. Reflect and pray. 

That is the two-pronged, ultra-simplified vision that we have for our readers. This week and part of next we take some time to curate and comment on some classic readings about prayer that may strengthen and encourage us in the practice of prayer.

Reflection: Extra Ordinary Prayer
By John Tillman

A kind of prayer that can have a profound difference in our lives is what Richard Foster refers to as “Ordinary Prayer.” Ordinary Prayer is anything but ordinary. It is seldom well-practiced. I would not say that we need less of any kind of prayer, but we could all use a little extra ordinary prayer.

Part of this type of prayer is putting our prayers into action. It is praying less with whispered words and more with the sweat of our brows and the work of our hands. A key part of Praying the Ordinary is the Prayer of Action.

Speaking of the Prayer of Action in his book, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard Foster quotes, Jean–Nicholas Grou: “Every action performed in the sight of God because it is the will of God, and in the manner that God wills, is a prayer and indeed a better prayer than could be made in words at such times” Foster continues, “Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer of action…These times are lived prayer.”

We enact prayers by putting what we say to God, ask of God, and know of God into all we do. C.S Lewis noted that the woman, noisily cleaning the sanctuary of a church and distracting him as he attempted to pray during the day, was praying with action, saying, “her enacted oratio is probably worth ten times my spoken one.”

But we do not need to be serving in a church or cleaning one to enact our prayers. Foster continues:

“Another way of Praying the Ordinary is by praying throughout the ordinary experiences of life. We pick up a newspaper and are prompted to whisper a prayer of guidance for world leaders facing monumental decisions. We are visiting with friends in a school corridor or a shopping mall, and their words prompt us to lapse into prayer for them, either verbally or silently, as the circumstances dictate. We jog through our neighborhood, blessing the families who live there. We plant our garden, thanking the God of heaven for sun and rain and all good things. This is the stuff of ordinary prayer through ordinary experience.”

We carry prayer with us into every moment of our lives. As we do, may our actions be blessings not curses, carrying the good news of the gospel.

*Quotations from Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard Foster

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Bless our God, you peoples, make the voice of his praise to be heard;
Who holds our souls in life, and will not allow our feet to slip.— Psalm 66:7-8

Today’s Readings
1 Chr 5-6  (Listen -12:23)
Hebrews 10  (Listen -5:33)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Chr 7-8 (Listen -9:04), Hebrews 11  (Listen -6:22)
1 Chr 9-10 (Listen -6:48), Hebrews 12  (Listen -4:36)

Thank You!
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Read more about Prayer as Vocation
To some, it might be a surprise that one of the primary definitions of the word “vocation” is a divine calling.

Read more about Cultivating Daily Bread
Daily bread refers to a daily need for God and purposely highlights the need for spiritual disciplines that are required for us to grow in faith.