Tag: Prayer

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”.

Ep048: Job Shouts at God

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

Today we look at Job, a wealthy, God-fearing man, for whom life had worked out very well. I too am God-fearing, but I’m not wealthy like Job, and my life holds together with shoestring and bubblegum. But Job, he was the real thing.

Job was so together that one day Satan said to God, “I suppose know that the only reason Job serves you is because you make him wealthy and comfortable.”  God replied, “Not so. Let’s make a test. You can take away everything he has except his life, and we’ll see.”

So in one stroke, Satan arranged to have all Job’s wealth stolen, his sons and daughters killed in an accident (sucks to be them in this story), and his health taken away. Job ended up on an ash heap scraping his boils with broken pottery. Three friends came round to visit him. They sympathized with him for seven days, and then started a discussion about Job’s downfall. Since none of them had overheard the conversation between God and Satan, they were all guessing about how to make sense of his disaster.

Do you feel that way about your life sometimes? That God and Satan are both messing about in your life, and you think Satan’s winning, and you’re not sure why?

Job and his friends had a debate. The proposition was, “Job’s disaster is due to his sin.”  Job argued against, insisting that he hadn’t sinned. Job’s friends argued that God always punishes evil and rewards good, so Job’s disaster was clearly God’s punishment for evil thoughts or actions. Job disagreed. He reaffirmed that he had kept God’s laws, so God couldn’t be punishing him. As the debate progressed through 28 chapters of Job, the arguments become more shrill, more fierce, more extreme. The friends launched personal attacks on Job’s character, and Job responded by tweeting that they were poor comforters. It was almost like modern political discourse, with mud slinging and character attacks and general unpleasantness.

Finally, a young man named Elihu stepped in and said, “They told me that wisdom comes with age, but the four of you have proved that it doesn’t. Here’s how I see it: Job is claiming he’s righteous and you friends are claiming that he’s evil. But none of that can be proved. Maybe there’s some mystery in the way God works. Maybe Job isn’t quite as righteous as he things. Maybe you friends are wrong about of God; maybe he’s doing something different than just punishing evil and rewarding good.. Maybe God is bigger than you imagine. Maybe his ways are not as simple as you think.”

After Elihu’s speech, God came in a storm of whirlwind and lightning. He said to Job, “Time out. You want to argue with me about how righteous you are, but that’s not a game I play. I’m the creator of heaven and earth, I made the seas and land and animals and seasons, and it all works together. Who are you to question my judgment?” And Job was humbled. He apologized for shouting about how poorly God treated him. He quit demanding an explanation for his disaster. He said to God,
    “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand . . .
     My ears had heard of you
           but now my eyes have seen you.
     Therefore I despise myself
            and repent in dust and ashes.”

That’s the story of Job. Now what about his prayer life? Through the experience of disaster and arguing with his friends about about God, Job’s prayer life grew in an interesting way. He moved from from demanding that God explain things, to a quiet acceptance that he could not understand or explain God’s ways. Job learned to be satisfied that God was God and Job was human.

Let’s pray.
Our Father,
With Job we want you to explain the cause of our pain and tell us how to fix it.
With Job we rail against you and call you to account.
Like Job’s friends, our friends and churches often don’t understand how you work, and they give us bad advice.
Help us in the days of our trouble never to stop speaking to you, even when everything we say is complaining; and bring us through our troubles to a place where we worship and love you.
Amen.

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

Ep.047: Psalm 15: Sanctuary

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

Today we look at Psalm 15. Unlike most of the psalms before, the poet is not in crisis. There is no hint:
of enemies pursuing,
of despair overwhelming,
of being stuck in the pit,
or of God hiding and not paying attention.

The poet starts by asking, “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may stand on your holy hill?” In a quiet, meditative way, the poet reflects on God’s temple and God’s promises. Do you do that sometimes? Do you spend a quiet day with God, away from work and friends and family? It’s helpful to do that in our busy lives.

The poet says his heart’s desire is to live in God’s sanctuary, to stand on God’s holy hill (v. 1). The sanctuary and the hill are “thin places” where God’s space intersects with human space, where God’s life mingles with human life. The poet wants to find that space and live in it, but it’s not as simple as pitching his tent close to God’s tent. It is not as easy as becoming a priest so he can enter the temple. The way to live close to God is to obey his law, so the poet outlines the way of life that lives in God’s space.

It goes like this:

In God’s space some behaviours are unacceptable and will get us thrown out. Slandering, doing wrong to neighbours, casting slurs on people, and giving bribes are unacceptable behaviors that disqualify us to live near God (vv. 3, 5). These are things we’re not supposed to do, like Google’s old motto, “Don’t be evil.”

But it’s not enough just to avoid bad actions. In 2015, the Google companies added a new motto, “Do what is right”. The poet agrees. Living in God’s space requires us to be active and purposeful in doing good. The poet says:
walk blamelessly,
do what is right,
speak the truth from your heart,
despise vile people,
honor people who fear the Lord,
and keep your promises even when it hurts (vv. 3-4).

In summary, the way into those thin spaces where earth and heaven meet, the way to live close to God, is: Don’t do evil. Instead. set your heart right, then do good from a good heart.

Let’s pray.
Our father, like the poet, we have moments when we feel close to you, when we are  in a thin space where our world intersects with yours. These have been for us moments of grace, moments of peace and trust, moments when we sense you are near, when we feel you holding us in your love.

Sometimes these moments occur in the beauty of nature, sometimes in church, sometimes when reading scripture or listening to music, sometimes in conversation with family and friends. In these moments we recognize you in our lives, we feel your spirit in our souls, we hear your voice in our world.

Help us receive these moments as your gift to us.
Help us live in the light these moments shine on us.
Help us shrug off the habits that move us away from you.
Help us acquire the habits of mind and heart that draw us into your presence.
Help us to live in your temple, to stand on your holy hill, to dwell in the spaces where earth meets heaven.
And help to grow in this way of life, until we experience the promise of Psalm 15, “The one who does these things will never be shaken” (v. 5).

Amen.

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

Ep046: Prayers of a Moment, Prayers of a Lifetime

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

Not long after 600 BC, the Babylonian empire conquered Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel. They destroyed the city of Jerusalem and took many people captive to Babylon. This Babylonian captivity of Israel lasted about 70 years (Jer. 29:10) until Persia overthrew Babylon and implemented a new empire.

During this time, an Israelite exile name Nehemiah worked as cupbearer for the king of Persia. His job was to taste the king’s wine to see if enemies had put poison in it. The upside of his job was that he tasted the best wine in the country. The downside was that nobody would sell him life insurance.  

When Nehemiah heard a report about the poverty and disgrace of the Israelites back in Judah, he fasted and prayed, reminding God of his promise to bring Israel back from exile. That’s the first type of prayer we see Nehemiah use: an extended campaign that included fasting, to draw God’s attention to a matter of deep concern.

During Nehemiah’s prayer campaign, the king said to him, “Why are you looking so sad?” Nehemiah was afraid, because looking sad wasn’t part of his job description and he didn’t have any life insurance. But he answered honestly, “Because the city of my ancestors is in ruins.” The king said, “What do you want?”

“I prayed to God and answered the king,” said Nehemiah (Neh. 2:4-5 )  This kind of prayer is a quick and silent plea in an unexpected moment of crisis. Nehemiah said to the king, “I want to go back to Judah and rebuild Jerusalem.” The king gave permission, and even offered an armed guard to escort him on the journey.

So Nehemiah led a group of Israelite exiles to Jerusalem, where he acted as governor, organized a work crew, and started rebuilding the walls. The local governors were angry and annoyed that political competition was moving into their territory, so they stirred up trouble to hinder construction. They mocked the small crew of wall builders: “If even a fox climbs on your wall, it will fall down.”  Nehemiah prayed, “Hear us, our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders” (Neh. 4:4-5). This is another Nehemiah prayer, pointing out his enemies to God and asking God to punish them.

The enemies escalated the situation by planning to attack Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s response: “We prayed to God and posted a guard” (Neh 4:9). Sometimes our prayers may need a bit of military support or other practical measures.

After the wall was rebuilt, Nehemiah declared a day of fasting and prayer in Jerusalem, where the people confessed the sin of their ancestors and renewed their commitment to serving God (Neh. 9). This brings Nehemiah’s prayer life full circle, from fasting and praying by himself in Babylon, to fasting and confession with the community in Jerusalem.

After the wall was completed, Nehemiah restored the house of God in Jerusalem and turned the Sabbath from a day of business back into a day of worship.  He prayed, “Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.” A remarkable prayer, asking that his life’s work would not be wasted. He wanted God to remember the good work and the man who did it.

Let’s pray.
Our Father,
Fasting and prayer are out of fashion today. We’re better at short spurts of prayer in moments of crisis. Work in us, God, so our lives will become like Nehemiah’s, a long campaign of service strengthened with prayers of many types.
Amen.

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