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

Is your God sometimes missing in action? 

Psalm 10 asks, 
   Why do you stand far off, Lord?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (v 1). 

The psalmist explains why he thinks God has gone missing. Listen to his evidence. 

– The wicked are arrogant and violent (v 2). Think Mexican drug cartels, American school shootings, or war in Ukraine. Where is God in these?

– More evidence? World leaders have no room for God in their thoughts (v 4). Trump and Putin and Xi Jinping? Lots of thoughts, but not about God. 

– A third evidence for God’s absence is that he isn’t helping the poor and weak (v 9). The strong and powerful of earth don’t care if the homeless live under bridges, if drug addicts haunt the inner city, and immigrants are abused, exploited, and deported. Does God also ignore the needy?

– The wicked say, “God doesn’t notice, he doesn’t care.” To them, life is a fight for survival where the strong win, the weak lose, and we move on to the next conquest. God doesn’t intervene. Does he even care?

Question: How does the psalmist respond when God goes missing?
Answer: He prays to the absent one. God may be missing but he’s still listening. 

Let’s pray. 

Arise, Lord. Lift up your hand, O God,
  do not forget the helpless (v 12).
See the trouble of the afflicted;
  consider their grief and take it in hand (v 14). 

When we are tired, depressed, sick, or lonely, we feel you’ve forgotten us. When cancer stalks those we love, when our lives feel short and empty, where are you, God? 

When evil rulers oppress with tariffs, expel immigrants and enrich themselves with cryptocurrency, where is your justice? When war is a way of life, when drugs are plentiful and jobs are scarce, you surprise us by not righting these wrongs. 

And yet . . . we believe you hear us. You listen to our hearts, you attend to our prayers, you encourage our faithfulness, you do see the poor and needy (v 17). 

We invite you to act like God, to judge the wicked and to ease our pain, to answer our prayers and heal those we love.

O God, don’t be absent from us longer than we can stand. Come near. Let us feel your presence. Comfort us with kind words. Treat us gently. Make us joyful in our relationship with you. 

Don’t be a God who is missing in action.  

Amen.

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

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

Do you find God doesn’t answer when you pray? Doesn’t reward you when you work hard? Leaves you lonely when you look for community? 

Psalm 9 helps us change gears from “Oh, woe is me” to “Praise God who knows and cares.” 

The psalm begins:
  I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart.
    I will sing praises to your name, O Most High (v 1-2). 

Great beginning. Cue some worship music, sing a happy hymn, tell God you’re thankful. 

The psalm continues: 
   You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked, 
      blotting out their name forever. 
   Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies, 
      even the memory of them has perished (v 5-6). 

God watches over the earth and the nations, noticing the evil and the good. He will crush your enemies forever. 

What enemies, you ask? The psalmist’s enemies were kings and nations that provoked war. But my war is a battle for my mind and heart. God promises to heal the diseases that infect my body, the moods that afflict my mind, the disturbances that affect my relationships, the demons that drive me insane. I look forward to the day when endless ruin will overtake these enemies, when even the memory of them perishes.

The psalm continues:
  The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
    a stronghold in times of trouble.
  Those who know your name trust in you.
    You never forsake those who seek you (v 9-10).

If I brood on my loneliness, vulnerability, and helplessness, I get depressed. The psalmist offers a more helpful picture of my life: God is my refuge and stronghold. He is a  castle I can run to, lifting the drawbridge and dropping the metal gate to keep out my enemies. 

God guards the walls of my life and shoots arrows at my enemies. 

Let’s pray. 

O father, with the psalmist we pray:
  Arise, Lord, don’t let mortals triumph.
    Judge the nations.
  Strike them with terror,
    let them know their mortality (v 19-20). 

Teach us to let go of our fears for the present and future, to stop obsessing on our spiritual experience. Teach us to worship you and thank you, when we feel you are present and when we feel you are absent.

You are God, God of the world.
You are the judge of nations.
You are eternal, everlasting. 

We come to you, like serfs running to a castle of refuge, like pilgrims seeking the safety of a hostel, like children to a father’s loving embrace. 

   You, God, will never forget the needy;
    the hope of the afflicted will not perish (v 18).

We surf an internet of lies and deceit. We feel darkness that calls us to despair. We see violence that defies hope. Yet, we believe you see, we know you care. In your time you will act on our behalf, establishing goodness and justice. 

We choose to be glad and rejoice in you.
  We sing the praises of your name, O most high. (v 2). 

Amen

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

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

Psalm 8 asks God,
  What are humans that you notice them,
      mortals that you care for them? (v 4). 

A good question. What are humans? Just another animal, or are we different?

Anthropologists used to define us as animals with language. But dolphins and bonobo  apes have language too. We used to be the animal that used tools, but now we know that crows, sea otters, orangutans, and elephants use tools too. We used to be the animal with culture, but Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees learning and passing knowledge to others.

So what does make us different? 

Not body size. Ostriches, crocodiles, and elephants are bigger than us. We have better science than the other animals, but dark matter and quantum entanglement expose the limits of our understanding. Our brains do more complex thinking and long term planning than our animal friends, but that hasn’t stopped us from waging war and destroying the earth. 

Listen to the psalmist’s view of humans. He says,
  You made them a little lower than God,
      you crowned them with glory and honor,
      you made them stewards of the earth (v 5-6). 

We are unique because God created us in his image, asking us to care for the world and the animals, and for each other. 

It’s not being at the top of the food chain that makes us special. It’s that we’re on assignment to care for the food chain and the earth.

Let’s pray. 

O God, how majestic is your name in all the earth (v 1).
  You made the universe, with trillions of stars.
  And in the universe you hid a small sunny star that heats a wee green planet where creatures made of dust live out their lives.  

Amazingly, you call yourself creator and father to these dusty creatures, shepherding our lives, teaching us to care for the world you gave us. 

We do not understand life, but we live it in the vastness of the universe, and in the seasons of our little planet, and on sabbath days of rest we take to honor you. 

O God, how majestic is your name in all the earth. 

Amen

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep. 440. Psalm 7. Justice.

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

Psalm 7 pictures justice as a hole and a boomerang. It says,
  Whoever digs a hole
      falls into it.
  The trouble they cause recoils on them,
      their violence comes down on their own heads (v. 15-16). 

If you throw evil into the wide world, it will boomerang back on you. If you dig a hole, you fall in. This is not legal justice where you lawyer up and launch a lawsuit. You reap what you sow, you get caught in the trap you lay. 

You live a violent life? Expect violence to find you. 

How did the psalmist arrive at this picture of justice? And what does God have to do with it?

Start at the beginning of the psalm. Danger threatens the psalmist, so he prays,
  O Lord, I take refuge in you;
    save me from all who pursue me,
  or they will tear me apart like a lion,
    and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me (v 1-2). 

Then the psalmist introduces his take on justice.
    O Lord, if there is guilt on my hands–
    if I have repaid friends with evil,
      or enemies by stealing from them,
    then let my enemy . . . trample my life to the ground (v 3-5). 

I’m willing to get what I deserve, he says. Scrutinize my life, judge my actions. They prove me innocent! No grounds for a lawsuit against me. I plead not guilty. 

Then the psalmist invites God to investigate his enemies. They are pregnant with evil, they conceive trouble, and give birth to disillusionment (v 14). They are the ones digging pits to trap him, planning violence against him. 

So the psalmist prays:
    Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness.
    Stop the violence of the wicked
        and make the righteous secure (v. 9). 

Let’s pray. 

O father, Jesus teaches us to confess our sins, but this psalm teaches us to stand on our righteousness.  

You are the God who probes minds and hearts (v 9). Evaluate our lives and our behavior.
  We work for your kingdom on earth.
  We shape our lives by your laws.
  We measure our actions by your word.
  We live at peace. 

Now turn your inquiry on our enemies. Those who bomb the earth, who pervert with bribes, whose rage ruins relationships, who hoard your good gifts. Those who make laws to shield the rich and exploit the poor. 

O God, may they reap what they sow. May they tumble into the pits they dig. May they gather a harvest of the violence they inflict on others. Let the wealth they have stolen be stolen from them. 

Bring justice on earth. The justice of consequences, and the justice of law. 

With the psalmist we say, 
    We give you thanks because of your righteousness, 
        We sing praises to your name, O Most High (v. 17). 

Amen

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

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

Terrified. That’s how the psalmist feels in Psalm 6. God terrifies him. His sickness terrifies him. The thought of dying terrifies him. So how does he pray through his fears?

Feeling God’s anger, he prays:  
   Don’t rebuke me when you’re angry,  
      Don’t discipline me when you’re in a rage (v 1). 

Sick in body and mind, the psalmist weeps through the night and prays:
  My  bones are in agony,
      my soul in deep anguish.
   I am worn out from groaning.
   All night I flood my bed with weeping,
      and drench my couch with tears (v 2-6). 

Terrified of death, the psalmist points out that if he dies he won’t be much use to God: 
  The dead don’t proclaim your name, 
      Who praises you from the grave? (v. 5). 

Thomas Hobbes described life outside of society as a life of “continual fear and danger of violent death,” a life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Leviathan, i. xiii. 9). 

That’s how the author of Psalm 6 felt about his life. 

Hobbe’s solution was for humans to live in society, to have a social contract for a civilized government that would provide a secure life. 

The psalmist is not so philosophical. He takes his “solitary, poor, short” life to God. 
  Feeling God’s anger, he asks for mercy instead of wrath. 
   Feeling God has sent sickness, he prays for healing. 
   Feeling there is no end to trouble, he pleads with God, “How long, O Lord, how long?” 

Let’s pray. 

O Father, with the psalmist, we pray,
  You have heard my weeping.
  You have heard my cry for mercy.
  You accept my prayer.
  All my enemies will be overwhelmed,
    They will turn back suddenly and be put to shame (v. 8-10). 

You have replaced our terror with your presence.
    We come to you, and discover that you are not angry.
    We ask for healing, and we feel your love.
    We bring desperate and confused minds to you, and you quiet us.
    We bring ruined and despairing lives to you asking, “How long, O Lord, how long?” and you answer that you are preparing a future and a hope for us. 

So we move from terror to confidence, from despair to hope, from doubt to faith. 

You have heard our prayer, and that is enough.

Amen. 

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

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube