Tag: Pray

Ep.024: Moses Says, “I Quit!”

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

After Moses led the Israelite slaves out of Egypt, they received the 10 commandments at Mt. Sinai. Then they began a journey through the desert to the promised land. Water was scarce and their only food was manna, a  seed-like substance that had to be cooked into cereal or ground into flour to make bread.

The people quickly grew tired of this diet and started complaining to Moses. “We’ve lost our appetite. All we get is this manna. What’s the problem here? How about something with flavor, like the fish and cucumbers and leeks and onions we had in Egypt?”

The people’s complaining angered Moses. He was annoyed with his job as their leader. Since it was God who  hired him as Chief Executive Officer and Project Manager for the trek through the desert, Moses made an appointment with God, and said to him:

“‘Why have you brought this trouble on your servant?
 What did I do wrong to deserve this burden?”
 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth?
 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’
 I can’t carry all these people alone. The burden is too heavy for me.
 If this is how you are going to treat me, do me a favor and kill me right now.” (Numbers 10:11-15)

Some prayer that. “If this is how you treat me, do me a favor and kill me right now.”  When I attended Sunday School, they didn’t use this story as a model for how to pray.

Note that Moses was doing the same thing as his people– he was complaining. They were complaining about food and Moses was complaining his job. God had promised the Israelite ancestors that he would give them the promised land. But after God’s sales pitch about the amazing future, guess who got stuck leading the impossible project? Moses, who complained to God, “You promised them the world, but all I get is a bunch of losers with unreasonable expectations, endless complaints, and zero initiative. I can’t do anything with this riffraff. I’m overworked and underappreciated and I’ve had enough!” Do you ever feel like that about your job? Does your boss think of you as unmanageable, complaining riffraff? Are your colleagues all impossible losers?

God, to his credit, didn’t start an argument with Moses. He didn’t give him a lecture about complaining. He didn’t send him on a project management course or a course on how to deal with difficult people. He didn’t suggest a new methodology like “Agile Leadership”. Instead, he quietly listened to Moses’ complaints, and he took two steps to address the underlying problems. God put his spirit on 70 elders to help Moses lead the people. And he sent a flock of migrating quails to provide meat to go with the manna.

Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, we too are on a journey to the land you promised. But sometimes you seem to lead us the long way around. You didn’t warn us about the restricted diet and the difficult working conditions and the complaining people we get to travel with. Give us wisdom and leadership and courage to continue.  Amen.

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

Ep.023: Psalm 3: Disaster has Struck!

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

Psalm 1 showed us an individual who is preparing to pray. Psalm 2 showed the world stage where prayer and politics are playing out. Now, in Psalm 3, we get down to the business of praying.

Psalm 3 has a subtitle that says, “A psalm of David when he fled from his son, Absalom.” Absalom was King David’s third son, so he wasn’t in line for the throne. But he had skill and ambition, so he won the hearts of the people of Israel, he proclaimed himself king in the city of Hebron, and he prepared to march on the capital city, Jerusalem, where his father David was king.

When David heard that Absalom was coming, he fled with his army and household to escape the coming terrorism and instability. As the convoy of refugees passed towns and villages, many who loved King David wept for him. David also wept on the road up the Mount of Olives, where many years later on this same mountain, Jesus, the son of David, would experience his betrayal.

Here are three things to notice about David’s prayer in Psalm 3.

1.  First, the prayer comes out of heartbreak, pain, loss, and desperation. David’s own son betrayed him and was preparing a violent coup. David doesn’t want to fight against his son, but circumstances may force him to.

2.  Second, at the beginning of the prayer, David’s focus is on his enemies: “Many rise up against me, many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him.’” But David’s focus soon turns to God. He says, “You are a shield around me.” Think of Star Wars, where the Death Star is shielded by a force field until Han Solo takes out the shield generator. God is our shield, and no evil empire or rebel alliance can take him out of the picture.

3.  Third, David chooses not to be paralyzed with fear. He doesn’t brood on all the bad things that are happening. He says, “I lie down and sleep, I wake again because the Lord sustains me.” Whether Absalom kills him or he kills Absalom, God is in charge. Might as well get a good night’s sleep.

Let’s pray.

“O Lord, how many are my enemies, how many say of me, ‘God will not deliver him.’”
– We bring to you our enemy anxiety. Our relationships are full of misunderstandings and stress. But we let go of the anxiety and replace it with trust in you.
– We bring to you our enemy self-pity. We are lonely, overworked, our health is failing, we are tired and poor. But we choose to exit our pity-party, and wait hopefully for the salvation you bring.

“You, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory and the One who lifts my head high.”
– We choose to stop looking at life with head hanging down. We want to see more than our feet. You are the one who lifts our head to see the shining sun, even when life seems black.
– We choose to stop looking at life with head hanging down. We want to see more than our feet. You are the one who lifts our head to see the shining sun, even when life seems black.

“I lie down and sleep, I awake again because you, Lord, sustain me.”
– Here we are, “Sleepless in Seattle” or wherever we live, brooding on the chaos and failure of our lives.
– But you have given us the day for work and the night for sleep. We commit to you our joys and sorrows, our relationships–broken or repaired, our hopes–dashed or renewed. We receive from you the gift of sleep, and the promise of a new day tomorrow.

Thank you, Lord. Amen.

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


Ep.021: Psalm 2: The Nations Have Gone Wild

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

Today we meditate and pray on Psalm 2, where the nations have gone wild. It starts:
Why do the nations rage
and the people plot in vain?
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers gather together
Against the Lord and against his anointed, saying
“Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”

In  Psalm 1, an individual was the focus, choosing to be a chaff person or a tree person. In Psalm 2, the whole world comes into view. The nations and their leaders say, “God means nothing to us. He has no claim on the kingdoms of the world. He has nothing useful to say about civil rights or human rights or terrorism or war.  We are on our own in the world, we’ll look after ourselves.”

  • North Korea’s Kim-jong Un says, “I’ll play with nukes to scare the big boys into cooperation.”
  • Vladimir Putin says, “A military adventure abroad will distract them from troubles at home.”
  • The Taliban say, “More car bombs in Kabul will drive the foreigners away.”
  • Bashar Al-assad of Syria says, “It took seven years of war, half a million dead, a few million refugees, and some chemical weapons, but with a little help from my friends, I’m still in charge.”
  • Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia says, “My war is destroying Yemen, we’ve killed a journalist or two, but women drivers are now permitted in Saudi Arabia. Clearly, I am making progress.”
  • Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu walks softly, but carries a big stick when dealing with Palestine.
  • President Donald Trump of the United States says, “You’re fired!”

But God refuses to be fired.  Psalm 2 says that God laughs at the world leaders, and says, “I have installed my king in Zion, my holy mountain.”

And God says to his son,
“Ask me and I will make the nations your inheritance,
 the ends of the earth your possession.
You will break them with a rod of iron
and dash them to pieces like pottery.”

Let’s pray. Our Father, perhaps the anarchists are right. Perhaps the only way to fix the broken politics of this world is to smash them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like pottery. You promise your son, who we know as Jesus, that you will give him the nations as his inheritance to rule or to destroy as he wishes.

Somewhere behind the politics of this world, somewhere beyond the posturing of the leaders, somewhere far from their self-promotion and bravado and violence; somewhere unseen in the confusion of the nations — Jesus your son is waiting, building his kingdom of righteousness, training his soldiers of truth and peace. As the psalm says, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  

Our Father, this is our prayer today . . . that we will not live in fear or awe of the kings of this world, but that we will find in King Jesus a refuge for our lives, and that in him, you will bring the day when he will depose all earthly kings and establish his reign forever.

Amen.

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

Ep.019: Psalm 1: Tree People and Chaff People

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

Today we start a new prayer project: praying through the Psalms. We start with Psalm 1, which asks the question, “Do you want to be a chaff person or a tree person?”

Psalm 1 describes wicked people as chaff blown around by the wind.  So what is chaff?

When the wheat is growing, the kernels are protected by an outer layer of fibre. But after harvest, you garbage the dry and useless husks, and save the edible kernels to be ground into flour.

1. Imagine a grain farmer in ancient times, using a shovel to toss his pile of grain into the air. The wind blows away the dry husks and dirt, and the good seeds fall back into the pile.

2. A modern combine takes the crop into the front and spews dirt and straw and husks out the back.

3. In World War 2, planes dropped foil-backed strips of paper into the air to confuse the enemy radar. They called it chaff. It was a cloud of paper fluttering down through the air, ending up as useless litter on the ground.

Maybe your life is like chaff: short-term, temporary, little to show for your efforts, changing direction with the weather, a cloud of dust and husks in the blowing wind. Always looking for the next hit of entertainment or drugs or religion that will mask your pain and give you relief from gnawing emptiness and angst.    

Psalm 1 says there is another way to do life. Instead of being a chaff person, you could be a tree person. A tree, planted by streams of water, always green and leafy, giving a harvest of fruit. A tree person has deep roots, a tree person doesn’t dry up and blow away. A tree person becomes like Treebeard the Ent in “Lord of the Rings” — not hasty, but thoughtful, wise, and good.

Let’s pray.  

Our Father, so much of our life is chaff. Our books, our movies, our video games, days on Facebook and nights surfing the net. Our lives are blowing away a cloud of dust and chaff.  

Help us become tree people. To grow our roots deep into your word. To listen to our heart when it tells us to pray. To obey the spirit when it encourages us to love a neighbour. Psalm 1 says, “The Tree Person delights in the law of the Lord.”  Help us to discover the delight that comes from letting go our ways of chaff, and growing roots and leaves and fruit, fed by the Spirit in streams of water and growing up into the warming sunshine of your presence.

Amen.

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