Ep.437: Psalm 4: Evening Prayer.

Ep437. Psalm 4. Evening Prayer.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

When you’re desperate, do you pray? The psalmist does. Listen to psalm 4.
Answer me when I call to you,
O my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress,
Have mercy on me and hear my prayer (v 1).

This psalm is a bedtime prayer, a “now I lay me down to sleep” meditation. At the end of a long and difficult day, we are tired and confused. Discouraged. We’ve read of murders and chaos. We’ve endured countless advertisements promising happiness if we drive faster, travel farther, buy more, eat sweeter, and live fuller. The psalmist responds,
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? (v 2)

If you measure your life by career success, possessions, health, and happiness, watch out! The psalmist measures life by our relationship to God:
The Lord has set apart his servant for himself,
the Lord hears when I call to him (v 2-3).

This psalm is a reset button at day’s end, pulling us away from endless viewing and scrolling to see what God offers. Before drifting off to sleep, the psalm says,
. . . when you are on your bed,
search your heart and be silent.
Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the Lord (v 4-5).

The day is ending. The newspaper is in the recycle bin. Computers are off. Cell phones charging.

Receive the quiet. Offer the day to God. Don’t obsess on what went right and wrong, don’t brood on your coulda, shoulda, woulda done. Give the day to God, a sacrifice to him. As you sleep, God prepares a new day for you, a day where you will wake up and start over.

Let’s pray.

O father, we live in a constant commotion of distracted work, agitated hearts and confused thinking. Social media perturbs us, world news shakes us, anxiously we try to make sense of our lives.

With the author of psalm 4, we ask,
Who will teach us how to live? (v 6).

And with him we respond,
Let the light of your face shine on us.
Fill our hearts with joy (v 6-7).

Replace our agitation with purpose, our restlessness with peace, our questions with quietness. May we sleep a hopeful sleep, trusting you to watch us, trusting you to wake us, trusting you to work your will in us.

In peace I lie down and sleep,
for you alone, O Lord,
make me dwell in safety (v 8).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.436: Psalm 3: Enemies.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Do you pray that God will punch your enemies and break their teeth?

Psalm 3 does. But first, we need to begin where the psalm begins. It’s titled, “A psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom.”

Here’s the backstory. David’s son Absalom staged a coup. Fearing for his life, King David fled Jerusalem, and Absalom moved into the palace. Everything important to David was breaking. A failing kingship, a failing family, his life in grave danger. What to do?

David prayed, updating God on his perilous situation:
  O Lord, how many are my foes,
     many rise up against me.
  Many are saying of me,
     “God will not deliver him” (v 1-2).

David’s enemies wrote God out of the picture. But David wrote God into his picture. He prayed,
   You are my shield, Lord,
      my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
I call out to you,
      and you answer from your holy mountain (v 3-4).

Something shifted for David as he prayed. His enemies loomed less large. He trusted God to protect him. Despair became hope of deliverance. God’s glory invaded his weak and shameful escape from Jerusalem.

Listen to David’s relief and his emerging hope:
    I lie down and sleep;
      I wake again because the Lord sustains me.
    I will not fear though tens of thousands
      assail me on every side (v 5-6).

With this newfound confidence, David calls God to action:
Arise, O Lord!
Deliver me, O my God!
Strike my enemies on the jaw.
Break their teeth (v 7).

Is God David’s security detail, punching his enemies and breaking teeth?

Let’s pray.

O father, I too have enemies, but they are not plotters and assassins. My enemies lurk in my heart, emboldened by the degeneracy of our society.

My enemy is persistent anxiety that overwhelms me. My foe is unbelief that whispers, “Is God really listening to your prayers?”

In our world of wrongs and evil, I wonder if you care.

And yet . . . you are a shield around me. You teach me to think clearly, to believe faithfully, to act righteously, to hope relentlessly. You aren’t punching people and breaking teeth for me, but you sustain me in prayer, refresh me in sleep, encourage me in hope and love.

As the psalmist says,
From you, Lord, comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people (v 8).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.435: Psalm 2: Conspiracy.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Psalm 1 speaks to individuals, inviting us to pay attention to scripture, to think about it, to meditate.

Psalm 2 speaks to nations and kings, exposing a conspiracy. It says,
Why do the nations conspire
and the people plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed (v 1-2).

It’s a conspiracy of nations that rebel against God to establish their own kingdoms. Conspiracies are everywhere. Putin invades Ukraine, China bullies Taiwan, Netanyahu reduces Gaza to ruins, Trump implements tariffs and expels immigrants to make America great.

The psalmist says these are conspiracies against God. Earthly rulers throwing off the constraints God set for nations. They sacrifice truth and justice on altars of power and wealth. They create radical and inhumane kingdoms, not knowing or caring they are accountable to God.

The psalmist’s solution? God says to the greatest ruler of all,
You are my son;
today I have become your father.
Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance. . . .
You will break them with a rod of iron;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery (v 7-9).

God’s son will destroy the world’s kingdoms, pitch them on the trash heap of history, and replace them with God’s kingdom.

But what if a nation honors God? Can it avoid God’s anger and his son’s demolition?

Remember when Israel wanted a king like other nations? A strong man to make Israel great. Watch out, warned Samuel. A king will make you pay for his extravagances. He’ll take your best workers and animals for himself. He’ll tax your income and capital gains! Are you listening? You’ll end up no better than slaves (1 Sam 8:14-18).

Samuel and the psalmist don’t believe strong leaders will drain the swamp and make a nation great. Instead, they warn that strong leaders will create their own bureaucratic swamp and run the country for the benefit of friends and family.

God’s solution is his anointed king, who will invade history and upend it.

Let’s pray.

Our father, our lives have been enriched by the nation we live in. Health care, police protection, and the freedom to worship, travel, and speak as we wish.

But we feel the same pull Israel felt. Our difficult and chaotic times, like theirs, require a strong leader to keep our country on track, to set the nation right, to restore us to greatness.

We heed the psalmist’s warning that those in power build kingdoms of this world, that conservative and liberal ideologies build human kingdoms, not your kingdom.

O father, lead us to the country whose builder and architect is God. Lead us to worship your son, the king, and take refuge in him.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.434: Psalm 1: Summer Squash or Trees?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today, we continue with our prayer tutor, the psalms.

Psalm 1 says if we meditate on God’s word, we will be like trees flourishing beside a river.

James Garfield, the 20th president of the U.S., had a prior job as president of a religious college in Ohio. A parent asked to shorten the course of study for his son. Garfield replied, “What do you want for your son? God takes two months to grow a squash, but a lifetime to grow an oak.”

I like squash. It’s a quick solution to a difficult problem. But I’d rather my life was a tree. To grow tall and beautiful, the psalmist says we should delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate on it day and night.

So . . . what kind of meditation grows a tree?

First, let’s define meditation. Author Rick Warren says if you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate. If you obsess on problems, turning them endlessly over in your mind, stressing about every detail, and losing sleep over bad things that might happen, then you have lots of meditation experience. But, big oops here! You’ve been meditating on the wrong things.

Why not replace those troublesome meditations with something positive? Think about scripture. God loves you. He’s in control. He has good plans for you and for planet earth. He says your troubles are temporary. They will soon be replaced with eternal glory.

And what about those midnight meditations? Do you wake at strange hours like me? Are you up and reading and snacking on empty calories? Other times I lie in bed and worry about the world. On better nights, I might recite scripture to myself until sleep welcomes me back where I belong.

Of course, reciting scripture in the dead of night requires learning it during the day. Easier said than done. I take scripture with me when I walk the dog, when waiting in line for Costco gas, when enjoying a coffee at Tim Hortons.

As I mull over scripture, it exposes and judges my inner life. The Book of Hebrews says, “The word of God is . . . sharper than a double-edged sword . . . It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb 4:12).

My inner life is a hodgepodge of random thoughts and mercurial feelings, of obsessions and desires, worries and hopes. When I’m feeling harsh and cynical, I spout edgy opinions on politics and church and life.

Scripture pokes around in those thoughts and attitudes, heading off meditations on violence and sex and chaos, urging me, instead, to pray and praise.

If I were less of a worry-wart and more attentive to God’s word, I might mature into a beautiful tree instead of a lowly squash.

Let’s pray.

Our father, an old prayer invites us to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the holy scriptures (Anglican Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the second Sunday in Advent).

Help us to do that. To strengthen our spiritual muscles that attend to your word. To underline the scriptures that you bring to our attention. To learn them by heart. To usher them into our private thoughts and public actions. As we inwardly digest the holy scriptures, may they become our source of life and growth.

May we become living trees by your river of life.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

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Ep.433: Psalm 1: Blessed.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today, we visit our old tutor in prayer, the psalms.

The first word in the Book of Psalms is “Blessed.”

“Blessed are those who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked.” What does that mean?

Some modern translations say “happy” instead of “blessed”: “Happy are those who do not walk in the counsel of the wicked.”

I object. I don’t like the word happy.

“Happy” is too shallow. I attend an Anglican church with a contemporary service–keyboard, guitar, drums–instead of old-fashioned organ and hymn books. A friend calls this the “happy, clappy” service.

Does the contemporary service make me happy? Sometimes. I might start sad and finish happy. And other times, I’m just emotionally neutral from start to finish.

I choose to participate in community, to seek God with others, to open my heart to Jesus, and wait for him to open his heart to me.

That’s the blessing of Sunday. Not a blessing that guarantees happiness, but one that changes my life as I seek God, worship in community, and learn to love my neighbor.

Happiness comes, happiness goes, but God’s blessing rests on my choices, and my activities.

That’s what Psalm 1 wants for me.

Let’s pray.

O father, happiness is a by-product, not a goal. What the psalmist desires and wants us to desire is your blessing. Your smile to embrace and encourage us. Your presence to make our lives fruitful. Your grace in our lives to heal us and make us whole. Your blessing over everything we do.

Teach us to walk in the way you bless. Not to walk in the way of the wicked, not to stand with sinners, nor to sit with cynics.

Teach us to delight in your word. To become like trees, flourishing by rivers of water, your water.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.432: Praying Distractedly.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today we consider distractions in prayer.

Author Henry Nouwen describes the problem:

When I try to pray I spend the hour thinking about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read and books I should write, and thousands of other silly things that grab my mind for a moment. (From Road to Daybreak (New York: Image Books, 1989))

Exactly. What grabs your mind when you try to pray?

I once spent an extraordinarily distracted day in prayer. I tried my usual routines, but just could not focus. I tried reading scripture, but it was dry as dust. I tried journaling, but had nothing worth writing. I tried praying, but nobody was listening. I wandered to the library and flipped a few pages. No inspiration there.

But I plugged away at it, more or less, until I finally found relief by quitting at 4:30,

Later, I reported my experience to Sister Doreen, my spiritual director, a nun.

“Ah yes,” she exclaimed. “The desert. And what fruit came from your day in the desert?”

“Well,” I said, “My prayers were useless, but the rest of the week was amazing. I was at peace with myself and God and the world. I made good decisions. I did stuff that needed doing.”

“Yes,” said Sister Doreen. “The desert is good for our spiritual life.”

I think God likes it when I show up to pray, even when my prayers are dry and inarticulate.

Another time I said to Sister Doreen, “When it’s time to pray, I always think of six urgent things I have to do first. Once the garbage is out, the dishes put away, and those emails finally sent, I will feel caught up and I can be at peace while I pray.”

She replied, “You’re lucky if you only have six things on your list. I always have at least 16!”

The solution, difficult as it is? Put prayer at the top of the list. If I start doing other stuff first, I’ll be busy all day, and never get round to prayer.

Henry Nouwen continued his comment on prayer:

Sitting in the presence of God for one hour each morning in total confusion and with myriad distractions radically changes my life. I might think each hour is useless, but after thirty or sixty or ninety useless hours, I gradually realize I am not as alone as I thought; a small gentle voice had been speaking to me far beyond my noisy place.

Let’s pray.

O father, it’s not just our prayers that are distracted. It’s our lives. Cell phones call, emails beckon, Fox news and CBC are just a soundbite away. Facebook wants me to scroll, podcasts cue up for my attention, and Trump is just a click away on Truth Social.

But it is your truth I need, O father. The truth of peace in a chaotic world. The truth of quietness in a clamoring culture. The truth of your fatherhood in a world of broken homes, broken dreams, broken promises, and broken lives.

Give me grace to set aside the things that seem so urgent, to postpone the tasks that divert me, to discipline the thoughts that distract me, to rest quietly in your presence. Teach me to hear your still small voice.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.431: Praying Through Mark’s Gospel.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

We’ve prayed the Gospel of Mark for 45 episodes, from the first verse which says, “The beginning of the gospel” to the end which says, “He rose from the dead.”

Time to ask, “What did we learn?”

I learned four things.

1. Jesus was not a rational or systematic sort of teacher. Not for him college degrees or workshops in logic and rhetoric. He didn’t write a book and do a promotional tour. Rather, he travelled randomly about Palestine, preaching, teaching, healing, speaking.

McLuhan famously said, “The medium is the message.” Jesus’ medium? Casual conversations, listener-friendly parables, stories about the weather and farmers and merchants and homemakers, arguments with Establishment Religion. But at the end, the cross he died on and the grave he rose from were his media, that still speak his message most clearly.

2. Almost everybody who got close to Jesus spent a lot of time being confused. His family speculated that he might be insane (Mark 3:20), the religious leaders suggested he was demon possessed (Mark 3:22). To bewildered disciples, Jesus said, “Why are you so afraid? Don’t you have any faith?” (Mark 4:40). Pilate asked, “Are you really the king of the Jews?” (Mark 15:2). Did anyone understand Jesus?

3. Mark didn’t write to confuse. The strongest voices in his narrative proclaim faith. Like, Mark’s own voice that says, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Like the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, repeated at his transfiguration: “This is my son” (Mark 1:9, 9:7). Like the demon’s voice that said, “I know who you are–the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24). And Peter’s voice, his great confession: “You are the Messiah” (Mark 9:29).

Voices from heaven and hell, voices from Peter and Mark richly endorse Jesus as God’s special messenger, his son, on earth.

4. Finally, the bit players had an important role in Mark’s gospel. A leper cleansed, a blind man sees, a lame man walks, a woman with a life-long hemorrhage healed. And more: children blessed, a widow’s small offering honored. No backstories, no names or addresses. After they receive Jesus’ gift, we never hear from them again.

But they all point us to Jesus, offering hope he can meet our greatest needs too.

Let’s pray.

O Jesus, I am a bit player in your story. I have seen you heal and restore and forgive and save. Do the same for me.

O Jesus, I am a disciple in your story. Confused, I have followed your ministry years. Afraid, I have denied you at the crucifixion, and wondered at your resurrection. Teach this perplexed seeker to follow you, to receive your healing, to believe your message, to live as you did.

O Jesus, I add my voice to the voices in Mark’s gospel. You are the Son of God, my Messiah, my risen one, my healer.

This is the gospel of Mark, full of the good news that I can live fully in you and you in all of me.

Amen

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.430: Resurrection.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Two days after the crucifixion, two women took spices to anoint Jesus’ body. “How will we move the stone that seals the tomb?” they asked.

But someone had already moved it. Instead of Jesus’ body, they found a man in a white robe who said, “Jesus isn’t here. He rose from the dead. Go tell his disciples to meet him in Galilee” (v. 6-7).

Trembling and bewildered and afraid, the women fled, saying nothing to anyone.

And that’s the end of Mark’s gospel, in the earliest and best manuscripts.

It’s an incredibly unsatisfying ending. Why weren’t the women excited that Jesus was alive? Who told the disciples about the change in plans? Did anybody actually see the risen Jesus?

Mark’s ending has been a problem for Gospel scholars for 18 centuries. There are a couple popular endings that tell the rest of the story, but no one knows who wrote them.

Instead of trying to solve the problem of how Mark ought to end, I think I’ll just make some comments.

1. In spite of an abrupt ending, Mark’s gospel is never confused about who Jesus is. The first verse calls him “the Messiah, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). At his baptism, a heavenly voice says , “You are my son” (Mark 1:11). At the transfiguration, that voice again: “This is my son whom I love” (Mark 9:7). And after the resurrection, an angel in the empty tomb, “He is risen”. Mark trusts the voices that said Jesus was the son of God.

2. Mark describes most of those who interacted with Jesus as confused. His family thought he was insane, the religious leaders saw him as a fraud, the disciples argued about who would be greatest, and Pilate? He didn’t care if Jesus was king or criminal. “Flog him. Crucify him. Next case!”

Many things Jesus did surprised and confused people. He rejected the Pharisees’ take on Old Testament law and practices, he drove money changers out of the temple, he walked on water like a ghost, he claimed to forgive sins. He was a complex character. Nobody really understood him.

So I’m not surprised that Mark’s story ends with confused women and a missing body. You would be confused too if you’d watched a brutal crucifixion on Friday and two days later found the body inexplicably missing. Too much information to process in one weekend.

3. I like an ending that leaves us with questions. Like, what happened next? Did the women get past their confusion and start talking? How did the disciples hear that Jesus was alive?

I think Mark knew his readers would hear the rest of the story in their Christian community. And that they would experience the risen Christ in their own lives.

Let’s pray.

O Jesus, Mark’s ending invites us into the story. The tomb that was empty for the women is still empty for us.

Risen, you entered Mark’s life, inspiring him to write your story.
Risen, you entered the women’s confusion, changing their lives.
Risen, you found the disciples and inspired their witness.
Risen, you find me in my confusion and weave my story into yours.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.429: Crucifixion.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Mark 15 talks about Jesus’ crucifixion. After being tortured, he was forced to carry his cross to Golgotha, crucifixion hill.

Beaten and whipped by Roman soldiers, Jesus was too weak and slow, so a passer-by was conscripted to help.

Pilate nailed a sign to the cross that said “The King of the Jews”. What a sneering and cynical statement, expressing Pilate’s loathing for the endless religious and political squabbling in this backwater of the Roman empire.

Jesus was not a real king like Caesar. He had no path to power, he showed no strength against enemies, he found no guards or wisdom to protect himself.

Jesus’ trial and crucifixion was a public spectacle, a bit like reality television today. A chance for voyeurs to watch people scheming and arguing and airing dirty laundry. An opportunity to be fascinated and disgusted and entertained by human foibles and gratuitous cruelty.

Some watchers said to Jesus, “Did you say you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days? What’s your plan now?” (v. 29).

The religious leaders said, “He posed as messiah and king. He saved others. Can he save himself?” (v. 32).

The soldiers threw lots to decide who got his clothes.

Jesus was naked and alone on the cross.

Let’s pray.

O father, Jesus’ story is full of irony.

John’s gospel tells us that the temple Jesus would destroy and rebuild was his body. But after the crucifixion, that body was soon buried.

The religious leaders maneuvered the king of the Jews onto a cross, proving he had no credible claim as a religious leader, that he had no special relationship to God, burying any hope he had of starting a new religion.

Despite coming to build your kingdom, God, Jesus perished under Jewish conspiracies and Roman politics.

A few women who loved him and disciples who had abandoned him watched him die. What else could they do?

O father, Pilate and the religious leaders are long gone. Jesus’ cross has turned to dust. Archeologists excavate Roman ruins and ancient Jewish garbage dumps. But Jesus lives.

The sign under which he died is the sign under which we live. We meet and serve him. We pray to him for forgiveness and salvation. We trust his kingship in our lives, our churches, our world. We wait as he builds your kingdom, O God.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.428: Who Will Be Passed Over?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In Mark 15, the Passover didn’t pass over Jesus, it targeted him. Here’s what happened.

The religious leaders had a problem with Jesus and wanted him dead. Since only the Roman occupiers could execute prisoners, they took Jesus and their complaints about him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you king of the Jews?”

Jesus says, “If that’s what you want to call me, feel free.”

Then the religious leaders pile on with their complaints and accusations. But Jesus doesn’t defend himself. Pilate exclaims, “Don’t you have anything to say?”

Jesus didn’t.

Pilate wasn’t keen to execute Jesus. He was leery of the religious rivalry and endless tribal arguments among the Jews. So he said, “Hey, every year I set a prisoner free to help you celebrate Passover. How about Jesus this year?”

“Whoa, not him!” the religious leaders said. “How about Barabbas the murderer?”

“Okay, if that’s what you want,” said Pilate. “But what about the king of the Jews?”

“Crucify him!” they demanded.

Some comments.

1. Jesus didn’t look like a commanding king of the Jews. His followers abandoned him, the religious movement he started failed him, he sat silently through false accusations and unjust sentencing.

2. Passover holiday celebrated the first passover, where God’s angel of death targeted Egyptian firstborn, and spared the Israelites. At Jesus’ New Testament Passover, Pilate is the angel of life and death. He offered to pass over Jesus.

But the religious leaders desperately wanted Jesus out of the picture, so they convinced the angel of death to pass over Barabbas and target Jesus. It was a real Passover weekend for Barabbas. Not so for Jesus.

3. The world Pilate and the religious leaders inhabited sounds like the world we live in. Corrupt religion making alliances with politics. Power protecting the powerful, and ignoring the weak. We see truth and human life sacrificed for religious and political outcomes.

Let’s pray.

O Jesus, you were hated by religious leaders and abandoned by friends.

The Jewish religion that nurtured you turned its back on you.

You were targeted and imprisoned during a celebration of freedom.

You were silent before your accusers.

You were a puppet in the religious leaders’ machinations and a pawn in Pilate’s game.

You were wrongly convicted and harshly sentenced.

But somehow in the disaster, you were king. King of the Jews, ruler of creation, savior of the church, judge of the world.

Help us not to be like the religious leaders. May your strong name demolish our narrow ideologies, our questionable religious views, our corrupt political systems.

Help us see the truth, and speak the truth, and worship you who are the way, the truth, and the life.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube