Tag: Pray with me

Ep.053: Psalm 18: The Warrior King and the Warrior God.

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

Today we look at Psalm 18. On average, the psalms have 17 verses. Psalm 18 weighs in at 51 verses, three times longer than average. This poses a difficult problem: Is one episode sufficient for this psalm?  Or should we divide it into two or even three episodes? This question will become pressingly important when we get to Psalm 119 which has 176 verses, 10 times longer than average.

For what it’s worth, here’s my opinion. One episode is not enough to do ANY of the Psalms justice. They all deserve more. However, I am planning to get through all 150 Psalms in three years, including time off for summer vacations. So I’m sticking with a Psalm a week.

This week’s psalm, Psalm 18, has an astonishing first line. It says, “I love you, O Lord, my strength.” The Bible gives a high profile to the command, “Love God.” But this is the only time in my Bible where someone says to God, “I love you.” This is probably not a good model for how often you should say “I love you” to your partner.

Another astonishing thing is that Psalm 18 casts God as the God of war. David, the warrior king, celebrates God’s military adventures. Listen to the martial themes in the psalm:
    Smoke rose from his nostrils,
        Consuming fire came from his mouth,
   He soared on the wings of the wind. (v. 8-10)
    The Lord thundered from heaven
        . . . he shot his arrows and scattered the enemies,
       great bolts of lightning and routed them. (v. 13-14)
    He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
       From my foes who were too strong for me. (v. 17)
    He is the God who avenges me
       Who subdues nations under me. (v. 47)

Wow. Is your God out there in the fray doing battle for you, taking revenge on your enemies, delivering you from attacks, subduing nations under you, guiding your military adventures to victory?

It looks like God is providing air support for David’s combat mission on the ground. Picture God riding the cherubim across the stormy sky, shooting arrows and bolts of lightning at the enemies until they retreat with David pursuing. He’s how the Psalm puts it:
    He parted the heavens and came down,
        He mounted the cherubim and flew;
    Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced,
        With hailstones and bolts of lightning
    You made my enemies turn their backs in flight,
        And I destroyed my foes.
        I crushed them so they could not rise;
    They cried for help
        But there was no one to save them
    To the Lord
        But he did not answer.
That’s God, thundering about the heavens harassing the enemies, supporting David’s on the ground to overrun and crush them. Warrior God supports warrior king in battle.

The psalm ends with thanksgiving for the great rescue and the great victory God has given the king. David says,
    The Lord lives!
    Praise be to my Rock!
    Exalted be the God who rescues me! (v.46).

Let’s pray.

Our father, in the Narnia books, Susan asks about Aslan, the lion, “Is he safe?” Mrs. Beaver replies, “Of course he’s not safe, but he’s good. He’s the king I tell you.” In Psalm 18, you are not a safe God, but you are a good God, a God who can be trusted and loved by those who trust you and love you.

Thank you for being a strong God. In our world of tanks and F18s, of land mines and assault rifles, of  nuclear submarines and hydrogen bombs, we need you, a strong God, a warrior God. Engage with our world today. Mount your strategies against persons and nations who destroy each other and creation. Be for us a warrior  God.

Thank you also for your gentleness and love. As the psalm says,
    You brought me into a spacious place,
       You rescued me because you delighted in me. (v. 19)
   To the faithful you show yourself faithful. (v. 25)
    You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning,
       You turn my darkness into light. (v. 28)
    Who is God, besides you, Lord?
        And who is the rock except you? (v. 31)
   You show unfailing kindness . . . forever. (v. 50)

Amen.

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

Ep.052: God is not Listening!

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

Today we look at three verses in Isaiah, in which God said to Israel,
“When you spread your hands in prayer,
   I hide my eyes from you.
When you offer many prayers,
   I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood!
   Stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right.” (Isaiah 1:15-17)

That sounds serious. If you do wrong, God will hide his eyes from you and he won’t listen to your prayers. It also works in reverse: if you quit doing wrong and start doing right, God starts listening to you again. What could be simpler? If you want a better prayer life, get your act together and do right.

When St. Augustine, who lived about 300 years after Christ, was thinking about becoming a Christian, he prayed about his sex life, “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” (Augustine, Saint, and Maria Boulding. The Confessions. New York: Vintage Books, 1998, VIII,17, p.198, paraphrased). In modern language he would say, “Lord, help me lose my sexual addiction and learn self-control. But not yet.”  Do you think God listens to that kind of prayer? Augustine said to God, “I was afraid you might hear me immediately and heal me . . . of the morbid lust which I was more anxious to satisfy than to snuff out” (Augustine and Boulding, p. 198).

Isaiah and Augustine raise two important questions about prayer:
1. First, a general question: Does God always stop listening to prayers from people
caught deep in sin?
2. And second, a personal question: How do we know if God has quit listening to us
because of our sin?

In the New Testament, James says, “We all sin in many ways” (James 3:2), so if God never listens to those who sin persistently, we might as well quit praying right now. If we have sins we aren’t prepared to give up, or addictions so entrenched that we can’t evict them, what can we do? I like St. Augustine’s approach. Instead of hiding from God until he could change manage his addiction, he spoke to God about his love of sin and his desire for holiness.

The personal question raised by Isaiah and St. Augustine goes like this: “What does God think of me? Has he quit listening to my prayers because of my sin?” Is God’s word to Israel also his word to me: “Even when you offer many prayers, I will not listen”?

If you want to know what God thinks about you, ask him! You could say “God, do you think the bit of scripture I need most right now is Isaiah’s angry pronouncement, “I am not listening because your hands are full of blood”? Or should I listen to Christ’s compassionate invitation, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened” (Mat 11:28)? It can also be helpful to ask a more mature Christian about your situation. But choose your counsellor carefully. If you talk to someone who thinks God is generally angry and unhappy with humans, guess what answer that person will give you.

Let’s pray.
Our father, we are troubled by sins that infect our lives, by impure motives, by a worldview where we think you sit in stony silence waiting for us to improve. We invite you into these crazy mixed up lives of ours, into our selfish motives, into our unmanageable behaviour. Speak to us the word that will set us free. Show us the next step to grow in love for you and our neighbours. Change our heart’s desire, until all we desire is you.
Amen.

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

Ep.051: Psalm 17: Contract with God.

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

Today we look at Psalm 17. The background to this psalm (and to many other psalms), is Israel’s covenant with God. Since a covenant is a signed agreement between two parties, I call it a “contract”. Israel’s contract with God was negotiated at Mt. Sinai, where the Ten Commandments summarize Israel’s duty. At the signing ceremony, Israel agreed to love, honor, and obey God. They agreed to build a God-centered community and not to chase after other gods who appeared more powerful or exciting or accommodating.

God’s part of the contract was conditional. When Israel honored the contract, God promised to “love, honor, and protect” them. And when Israel violated the contract, God would discipline and punish them.

With this contract is in the background, the poet develops his prayer in three movements. In verses 1 – 5, he asks God to listen to his just cause. He’s confident his cause is “just” and “righteous” because he has been faithfully performing his part of the contract. He confidently says to God, “Even if you probe me and test me at night, you won’t find anything wrong” (v. 3).

In the second movement of Psalm 17, the poet makes a request. He says to God, “Since I have been faithfully doing my part, I’m calling on you to perform your  part of the contract.” But instead of using legal language or contract language to make his request, the poet surprises us with the language of personal relationship. He invites God to “love, honor, and protect” him in three lovely pictures: “Show the wonder of your great love” (v. 7), he says, “keep me as the apple of your eye” (v. 8), “hide me in the shadow of your wings” (v. 8).

The third movement of the psalm describes the poet’s enemies as hunters tracking him down (v. 11) and as a lion crouching to spring on its prey (v. 11). “I need a major rescue,” he says to God. “That would be your part of the contract.”

Let’s pray.

Our father, Israel’s contract with you reminds us of their freedom journey from slavery in Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the dangerous desert to their new home in the Promised Land. Our freedom journey is with Christ who negotiated a new contract with you, to liberate us from the guilt and power of sin, to invite us to new life in Christian community, and to write your law in our hearts (Hebrews 9:15).

Under this new contract, you adopted us as sons and daughters, you gave us the gift of your spirit, you called us to love each other and you. This we do, as much as we are able. We have turned our hearts from hatred to love, we have turned our motivation from self-righteous obedience to a heartfelt desire to imitate you. We measure our progress not by what we achieve but by how your spirit of grace and holiness fills us and flows through us each day.

As we live out this new contract, our enemies are ever near. We are unloving to your sons and daughters for we often find them unlovely. We are drawn to the gods of money, sex,self-interest, and power. We feel the spirit of this world mocking and taunting and resisting the good spirit you put in us.

With the poet we pray, “Show us the wonder of your great love, keep us as the apple of your eye, hide us in the shadow of your wings. Rescue us by your right hand from from the mortal enemies that surround us” (vv. 7-9).  With the hymn writer we say,

“My foes are ever near me,
 Around me and within;
But, Jesus, draw Thou nearer,
 And shield my soul from sin.” (John E. Bode, hymn: O Jesus I Have Promised, 1869)

Amen.

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

Ep.050: Proverbs on Prayer

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

Today we look at the Book of Proverbs. First, some context.

There are five books of poetry or wisdom literature in the Old Testament. They are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. Here’s a summary of their themes.

I call the Book of Job “The Mystery of Faith” because God and Satan agreed to take away everything Job had except his life, to see if his faith would stand up. But nobody told Job or his friends about the plan, so they were in the dark, trying to figure out the meaning of Job’s string of disasters. They were stuck in a living mystery. The friends’ simple explanation that God rewards good and punishes evil simply did not apply to Job. Job’s angry demand that God explain himself was met with silence. Today, God still does stuff without explaining it to us, and too get confused. This is the mystery of faith.

The next book, Psalms, are “The Emotions of Faith” because they express the full range of human emotion — anger at God, fear of enemies, feeling discontent, sad, abandoned, depressed, despairing. They also express joy, wonder, excitement, thankfulness, hope, and love. The books of Job and Psalms display all the wonder and diversity of creation and the mystery of human experience in a random collection of metaphors and word pictures, a wide assortment of stories and pictures.

Another book of poetry is Ecclesiastes. It begins, “Meaningless, meaningless. Everything is meaningless” (Eccles 1:2). That is a harsh statement about life. I think the original meaning is a bit softer, like this: “A puff of air, a breath of wind. Everything is vapour, just smoke and mirrors. What do we gain from our labor?” (1:3). The answer given is, “No matter how hard you work and how much stuff you collect, you end up buried in the ground, a meal for worms” (Eccles. 2:18-21). Who wins? You or the worms? Ecclesiastes teaches that neither work nor wisdom nor wealth nor pleasure will change our lives from that elusive breath of wind into something substantial. Not even faith will change the reality that your next breath could be your last. I call Ecclesiastes “The Fragility of Faith”. Faith receives a breath or a spirit we do not see to sustain an inner life that cannot control. Ecclesiastes’ advice for such a life is: “Don’t take yourself so seriously, don’t get depressingly philosophical, don’t be a workaholic. Life is short. Spend it with the people you love, enjoy good food, work hard, worship God. He will sort it out in the end”  (Eccl. 7:15-18; 9:7-10).

The last book of poetry is Song of Solomon, which I call “The Ecstasy of Faith” — the enjoyment of faith, that is, not the drug. It starts out, “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth — for your love is more delightful than wine.” Sounds like someone is headed for ecstasy. Even though God’s name does not appear in in this poem, the Christian church interprets it as an allegory of the love between humans and God.

You may have heard someone say, “All religions are basically the same because they all say, “Do good to others and worship God.’” Countering this reductionist view of religion, the books of poetry describe the Mystery of Faith, the Emotions of Faith, the Fragility of Faith, and the Ecstasy of Faith. Clearly, the poets promote an experience of God that is more complex than the simple command to do good.  

That’s how the books of poetry present religion . . . until you read the Proverbs, the book in the middle, after the mystery and the emotions of faith, before the fragility and ecstasy. Proverbs paints the religious life as black-and-white, good-and-evil, wise-and-foolish. No mystery here, no unnecessary emotion, nothing fragile or exciting. Just simple commands to do good and avoid evil. Reading only the three proverbs that use the word “pray”, we hear:
– The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him (15:8)
– The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous (15:29).
– If anyone turns a deaf ear to God’s instruction, even their prayers are detestable (28:9).

Clear, simple, straightforward, black and white moral teaching. God listens to you if you’re good, he rejects you if you’re bad. I call Proverbs “The Behaviour of Faith.” Yes, like other religions, the Bible promotes a moral standard. But in biblical religion, it’s only one part of the deal, not the central tenet of faith.

Let’s pray.
Our father, we have imagined that the most important thing in our faith is good behaviour. But the wisdom literature promotes not just a moral code, but a lifelong journey of faith, facing into the mystery of God, experiencing the depths of human emotion, bringing fragility and ecstasy and moral behaviour into a living relationship with you. Help us reject the religion of behaviour management. Help us embrace the many complexities of faith. And as we embrace a life of faith, may we discover that we are embracing you, and that you are embracing us.
Amen.

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

Ep049: Psalm 16: Creed.

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

Today we look at Psalm 16.  I call this psalm “Creed” because it is the poet’s statement of faith. In the church I attend, we say the Apostle’s Creed most Sundays. You may have heard it. It starts, “I believe in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth”, and continues “I believe in Jesus Christ” and “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

The poet doesn’t start his creed with “I believe” — he begins with “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge” (v. 1). What is important to the poet is not so much his doctrine about God, but his relationship with God.  God is his refuge and protector.

The poet continues, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord, apart from you I have no good thing” (v. 2). Again he places himself in relationship with God, calling him “my God” and “my only good”.

In both the psalm and the Apostle’s creed, land is important. In the creed, the land is the world, for God is “creator of heaven and earth”. In Psalm 16, the land is the poet’s home. He says, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup . . . the boundary lines have fallen to me in pleasant places” (vv. 5-6). His “boundary lines” mark out that bit of the Promised Land on which the poet lives. He receives this as a good gift from God. Wherever we live on God’s earth, whatever our situation, our place too is a gift from God.

The Apostle’s creed says, “I believe in the communion of saints.” The poet says, “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight” (v. 3). Where the creed states belief in fellowship, the poet states that he delights in it.  

The Apostle’s creed ends, “I believe . . . in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” Psalm 16 ends in a similar place:
  “Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices,
       my body also will rest secure,
       because you will not abandon me to the grave . . .
  You … will fill me with joy in your presence,
        with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

Let’s pray.

Lord, what is our life and how long does it last? I buried my brother in a cemetery in England, and my mother and father in a grave in Canada. Yet the poet says “You have made known to us the path of life, you fill us with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (v. 11).
Show us the path of life.
Let us feel joy in your presence.
Give us eternal pleasures at your right hand.
When the grave tells a story of sorrow and death, tell us your story of life and hope.

Our God, your story is bigger than the story we see. Your gifts are bigger than the gifts we give
– As creator-God, you give us the world. Thank you for the earth, our dwelling place, for the house or apartment that is our small shelter, for the harvests that provide our food.
– As personal-God, you give us yourself, for “You will not abandon us to the grave” (v. 10). Thank you that you paint our existence in a picture of life and death and life beyond death.

With the poet we pray, “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge” (v.1). This is our creed, that we find life in the shadow of your wings, and in the community of your people. Therefore, with the poet we say, “My heart is glad and my tongue rejoices, my body also will rest in hope” (v. 9).

Amen.

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