The Heart Beneath the Psalms (Part 2)

 

Why these ancient songs still know us

Part Two: The Longings Never Changed
 

Part One ended with a question: what are we actually searching for?

Because feelings are rarely the bottom of things.

Fear wants safety. Loneliness wants to be known. Shame wants mercy. Waiting wants something worth hoping for.

Civilizations evolve. Technology reinvents itself every decade. We find new ways to communicate, protect ourselves, distract ourselves, plan for what comes next.

But underneath all that movement, the old longings remain.

The scenery changes. The ache underneath doesn't.

Known

A photo gets posted. People like it. People comment. They know where she went, what she ate, what her kids look like. Some of them even know what she's struggling with, because she told them, carefully, in a caption.

And still, none of it means anyone actually knows her.

That's the strange arithmetic of being visible. You can be looked at by hundreds of people and still feel completely unseen by all of them.

Psalm 139 describes something rarer:

"You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar."

Notice how specific it gets. Not just what she did today, but what she was thinking before she said it. Not just where she is, but where she was formed: "you knit me together in my mother's womb." This isn't a psalm about being watched. It's a psalm about being known all the way through, without having had to explain any of it first.

We sometimes read this psalm as a warning: there is nowhere to hide from God. But that may not be its real comfort. The real comfort might be the opposite: there is nowhere we can become invisible to Him. The modern world has given us more ways to be seen than any generation in history. Psalm 139 describes something we still can't manufacture for ourselves, no matter how many people are watching. Being known.

Safe

The mountains are falling into the sea.

The waters are roaring. The nations are raging. Kingdoms are falling.

And somehow, Psalm 46 calls this a song about safety.

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea."

Read that again. The psalm doesn't promise the ground won't move. It imagines that it does — completely, catastrophically — and says God is refuge anyway. That's a much sturdier claim than "nothing bad will happen to you." It's the claim that something remains even when everything else doesn't.

Which brings us somewhere much smaller than falling mountains. Something happens in the world — a headline, a diagnosis, a number in an account — and you refresh the page. Then you refresh it again. The second refresh doesn't make you any safer. But uncertainty makes us reach for information, because information can feel, for a few seconds, like control.

We insure. We save. We plan. We monitor. We build careers and lock doors and read the fine print. None of that is wrong. But none of it can carry the weight we sometimes put on it: the hope that if we just manage enough variables, nothing will ever be allowed to fall.

Psalm 46 doesn't describe security as a world in which nothing moves. It describes security as discovering what remains when everything does.

We don't only want protection. We want something that cannot be taken away.

Forgiven

She rereads the message she sent yesterday.

Her stomach drops, not because she misremembered what she wrote, but because she remembers exactly. She knew where it would hurt. She aimed for it anyway. There's no fog around what happened. No misunderstanding to untangle, no context that would make it look different from another angle. She was wrong, plainly, and she knows it.

Psalm 139 already told us God knows everything about us: sitting, rising, thoughts before they're spoken. Psalm 51 is what happens next.

You know me, says Psalm 139.

And here is what You know, says Psalm 51.

That's a frightening turn, if you sit with it. Wanting to be known is one thing when you imagine God seeing your sleepless nights and your unanswered prayers. It's another thing entirely when you remember He also sees the message you sent on purpose.

David doesn't manage the moment the way we usually manage ours. He doesn't say he was under a lot of pressure. He doesn't explain the argument that led up to it, or point out that the other person wasn't blameless either. He skips straight past every version of "let me give you some context":

"Have mercy on me, O God... Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me."

No defense. No performance of composure. Just: mercy.

And here's what's easy to miss about this psalm. The remarkable thing isn't that Scripture records David's failure. Scripture records plenty of failure, his and everyone else's. The remarkable thing is that the failure didn't end the conversation. David is still talking to God in this psalm. He still believes, after everything he's just admitted, that God is listening.

The Psalms don't only give language to the wounded. They give language to the guilty.

That's a different comfort than "your feelings are valid," and a deeper one. It's the difference between a book that tells you you're allowed to hurt, and a book that tells you: yes, sometimes you were wrong, and mercy is still possible anyway. Every generation invents new ways to fail each other. The shame that follows hasn't changed nearly as much as the technology that delivers it. Neither has the hope that forgiveness might still be on the table.

Hopeful

Where does my help come from?

Three thousand years later, we're still answering that question. We've just changed which mountain we're looking at.

Psalm 121 opens mid-thought, as if the psalmist has already been staring at the hills for a while before he finally says it out loud:

"I lift up my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

We still lift our eyes toward something. The next scan. The next paycheck. An election. A relationship we're hoping will finally shift. A treatment, an opportunity, a person who might change if we just wait long enough. None of those hopes are foolish in themselves. But every one of them is finite. Every one of them can let us down, simply because it was never built to hold the weight we're asking it to hold.

The question was never really whether human beings will hope. We don't seem to be able to stop. The question is what we ask to bear the weight of that hope.

Psalm 121 doesn't ask us to stop looking. It redirects our eyes — not away from our circumstances, but beyond them, toward the One our circumstances cannot shake.

---

Remember the woman awake at 2:17 in the morning?

She searched. She scrolled. She texted a friend who wouldn't answer until morning. None of it touched the ache.

Maybe the ache was telling her what she was looking for.

Maybe she wasn't only searching for words. Maybe she was searching for what human beings have always searched for: to know that she is seen. To believe there is somewhere safe enough to rest. To know that what she regrets doesn't have to define the rest of her life. To believe there is something larger than herself worth hoping in.

Three thousand years ago, someone was searching for those same things, in a different language, under a different sky, and wrote them down.

History records what happened to people.

The Psalms record what happened inside them.

Perhaps that's why they never become old. The world keeps giving us new places to look for the things we've always wanted: to be known, to be safe, to be forgiven, to have reason to hope. And the Psalms keep turning our eyes toward the same place.

Not toward an idea.

Toward God.

The God who knows.

The God who shelters.

The God who forgives.

The God from whom our help comes.

The feelings never changed.

The longings never changed.

And neither has the One to whom they lead.

*****

 

If the Psalms gave words to something you've been carrying, you might find something familiar in these reflections too.
 

Known Without Earning
What it means to be fully known and loved by God without having to perform, prove, or earn your place.

Being Held Without Vigilance
A reflection on discovering a kind of safety that doesn't depend on constantly watching, anticipating, or preparing for what might happen next.

God Meets You in the Pain
Why suffering is not a place we have to escape before encountering God, but often one of the places where His presence becomes most meaningful.

The Future Is Not Hunting You
A reflection on learning to stop bracing for the next loss and discovering that the future can hold more than what fear has taught us to expect.

The Place In Between Where Life Still Meets You
What happens when the old life is gone and the new one hasn't fully arrived, yet God and life continue meeting us in the uncertain space between.

The Shoreline Series: Session 4 - Learning the Tide

 

Faith That Doesn't Panic at Low Tide

Based on Ecclesiastes 3, Psalm 42, 1 Kings 19

 

Once we have learned to stay anchored, another question rises to meet us.

Not what keeps me from drifting?

But does the low tide mean He has left?

Life is not linear. It breathes. Joy. Grief. Closeness. Distance. Activity. Rest. We have learned to trust the shore beneath us and to follow the horizon ahead of us and to stay anchored within the storm. But none of that quite prepares us for the moment the water itself seems to withdraw.

This is the shift from stability to rhythm.

From does it hold to does it return.

---

I. The Sea Was Never Meant to Stay High

Every shore keeps a tide line, a pale ridge of sand and shell marking how far the water has reached before. It is evidence the sea was here. It is also evidence the sea will be here again.

Low tide is not the sea failing to show up. It is the sea keeping a promise on a different clock than the one we're watching.

We tend to panic at the ebb because we have quietly mistaken the high tide for the norm and the low tide for the exception. Scripture never makes that mistake. Both are the pattern.

And here the tide teaches something the anchor could not. We often confuse rhythm with inconsistency. But rhythm is not inconsistency. It is faithfulness expressed over time. Nothing on earth is more predictable than a tide, and nothing on earth changes more constantly. The two are not in tension. They are the same fact, seen from two different distances.

II. A Time for Everything

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens... a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4)

Notice what the Preacher does not do. He does not apologize for the list. He does not rank the seasons, placing dancing above mourning as though one were the goal and the other merely the cost of getting there.

Winter receives no less dignity than harvest.

A faith that only recognizes God in the rising water has not yet learned to read the whole tide chart. The Preacher already had. He had watched enough seasons turn to know that the turning itself was not the tragedy.

III. Deep Calls to Deep

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." (Psalm 42:7)

This is the Bible's most honest tide poem.

The psalmist is not writing from the shore, admiring the water from a safe distance. He is in it — tears for food, memory as an ache, the low tide fully upon him. And still, in the very next breath: "By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me." (Psalm 42:8)

The psalm does not resolve the ebb. It sings through it.

That is worth noticing closely, because it is not the same as pretending the ebb isn't happening. The psalmist names his own soul out loud — "Why, my soul, are you downcast?" — and answers not with an explanation but with a redirection: "Put your hope in God." He does not talk himself out of the low tide. He simply refuses to let it have the last word.

IV. The Whisper After the Fire

Elijah had just seen fire fall from heaven.

Carmel was his highest tide: prophets of Baal defeated, the nation watching, God unmistakably present in front of everyone. And then, within a single chapter, he is running for his life, collapsed under a broom tree, asking God to let him die.

High tide. Then collapse.

Notice what God does not do. He does not rebuke the crash. He does not remind Elijah of the fire he just witnessed, as though gratitude could talk him out of exhaustion. He lets him sleep. He feeds him. Twice. Only then does He lead him to the mountain.

"The Lord was not in the wind... the Lord was not in the earthquake... the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." (1 Kings 19:11-12)

The whisper does not arrive at the high tide. It arrives after it: in the exhaustion, in the silence, in the very low water where Elijah assumed God had gone.

The low tide was not a detour from Elijah's calling. It was where his calling was fed, rested, and quietly renewed.

V. What the Tide Teaches Us

Session 3 taught us that hidden things hold us. Session 4 asks something a little different.

Not everything God gives us is an object. Sometimes He gives us a pattern.

The anchor is something we cling to. The tide is something we learn to trust. One teaches us stability. The other teaches us how to live faithfully within time, trusting that the water, however far it withdraws, still keeps its ancient rhythm.

We are remarkably quick to measure God's nearness by our own experience of Him. When the water rises, we call Him faithful. When it recedes, we wonder whether He has gone somewhere else. But the shoreline has never mistaken the tide for the sea. It knows the water still belongs to it even when it has pulled back beyond the sand we can see. Faith slowly learns to make the same distinction. God's presence is deeper than our perception of it.

Faith matures when it stops grading God's presence by the height of the water.

That's what the tide has always known, long before we did.

The tide that goes out has never once forgotten how to return.

VI. Standing at Your Tide

Where are you right now: coming in, or going out? Both are allowed to be named honestly, without shame and without alarm.

Perhaps the question is not, "Why did the water leave?" Perhaps it is, "What does this season make possible that high tide could not?"

Elijah was not fed and rested during the fire. He was fed and rested during the ebb, because that is where rest becomes necessary, and possible.

Storms reveal anchors. Tides teach patience.

And so, before you go, receive this as a blessing rather than a sixth movement:

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning." (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Not always high water.

Always the same sea.

---

Practicing the Presence of God at the Tide This Week

• Name your tide. Are you in a season of closeness or distance right now? Say it plainly, without judging it.
• Read the tide chart backward. Recall a past low tide that returned to high. Let it recalibrate what you expect from this one.
• Resist the panic narrative. Where have you assumed absence in a season Scripture would simply call rhythm?
• Rest during the ebb. What might this low season be making possible that a high season could not?
• Watch for the turn. Tides always change. Stay alert rather than despairing.

 *****

 

Continue Walking the Shoreline

The Shoreline Series: Faith at the Edge is a weekly devotional exploring the places where God meets us between endings and beginnings, certainty and mystery, grief and hope.

 

The Journey So Far:

Session 1: The Shoreline Where Life Meets God

Session 2: Following the Horizon

Session 3: The Anchor Beneath the Surface

Session 4: Learning the Tide (You are here)

 

If something here resonated, you may also enjoy:

The Place In Between Where Life Still Meets You

The Fifth Season: When Closure Never Comes But Clarity Does

Before Resurrection Was Recognized

The Shoreline Series: Session 3 - The Anchor Beneath the Surface

 

Discovering What Holds You Steady

Based on Hebrews 6, Psalm 1, Colossians 2

 

Once we begin walking toward the horizon, another question quietly appears.

Not where is God leading?

But what keeps me from drifting?

The sea is beautiful. It is also full of currents. Some we notice. Others carry us almost without our realizing it.

Faith is not sustained by stronger emotions.

It is sustained by deeper attachment.

If Session 2 was about learning to follow the horizon, this session is about discovering what holds us steady when the horizon disappears behind the storm.

This is the shift from direction to stability.

From movement to rootedness.

---

I. Every Sea Has Hidden Currents

The ocean's greatest movements happen beneath the surface. A calm sea can carry tremendous force — enough to move a ship miles off course while the water on top stays smooth and unbothered.

The Christian life often feels the same.

Drifting rarely happens all at once. It happens gradually, almost imperceptibly, one small accommodation at a time, until one day we wonder how we arrived so far from where we intended to be. No single wave carried us there. The current did.

Faith needs more than inspiration. It needs something that holds.

II. The Anchor We Cannot See

"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." (Hebrews 6:19)

An anchor is almost never visible while it is doing its work. Everyone on deck can see the sails, the rigging, the captain giving orders. No one can see the chain disappearing into the dark water below, or the iron dug into the seabed holding the whole vessel in place. The stronger the storm, the more everything depends on the part no one can see.

Hope, Scripture says, is like that.

Not because hope removes the storm. Because hope keeps us from being carried away by it.

III. The Tree Beside the Water

"That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." (Psalm 1:3)

Notice what the psalm emphasizes.

Not leaves. Not fruit. Roots.

Almost everything sustaining the tree remains unseen. We live in a culture fascinated by visible growth: the leaf, the fruit, the harvest others can applaud. But the psalm lingers on what happens underground, in the dark, where no one is watching and nothing looks like progress.

God almost always grows roots before He grows fruit. And roots grow exactly where no one can see them growing.

IV. Rooted in Christ

"Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him." (Colossians 2:6-7)

Paul chooses an interesting sequence. Rooted. Then built up. Not the reverse.

The life of faith does not begin with activity. It begins with attachment. Everything visible — the building, the fruit, the ministry others will one day see — depends on something invisible first taking hold.

This is not simply believing true things about Christ. It is remaining connected to Him, the way a branch remains connected to a vine it did not grow itself.

Notice, too, what Paul is doing with his language. Rooted is agricultural. The tree beside the water. Built up is architectural, a structure rising on a foundation no one sees once the walls go up. Two very different pictures, each pointing to the same hidden reality. Add the anchor from Hebrews and you have three images: tree, building, ship that never appear together in nature and yet describe the same hidden law of the spiritual life. Whatever stands must first be sunk, buried, or submerged.

V. What the Anchor Teaches Us

A pattern begins to emerge; the same one we noticed at the shoreline and again at the horizon.

God consistently works beneath the surface before He works above it. Seeds disappear into soil before anything green appears. Foundations are buried before a wall ever rises. Roots grow underground before a single leaf unfurls. Anchors sink beneath the water before they can hold anything steady above it.

None of these hidden things are failures to become visible. They are precisely what makes visible life possible, everything visible depends on something hidden.

Deep attachment tends to grow in hidden places, and there is a reason God favors the hidden over the immediate. If we could see our roots thickening in real time, or watch the anchor chain drawing taut against the current, we would begin trusting the measurement instead of the Gardener, the visible chain instead of the hand that cast it. We would manage our faith rather than depend on it. The hiddenness is not God withholding reassurance. It is God protecting us from a subtler danger: mistaking the signs of His work for the source of it.

Formation is often hidden long before it is recognizable. God is rarely in a hurry to reveal what He is patiently strengthening.

We often ask Him to calm the sea. Sometimes He first teaches us how to remain anchored within it.

VI. Standing at Your Anchor

Perhaps the question this week is not, "Am I moving fast enough?"

Perhaps it is, "What is silently holding me?"

Where are your roots growing? What unseen habits are anchoring your life? What invisible attachments have become stronger, over time, than you realized for better or for worse?

Storms reveal anchors. Not because they create them. Because they uncover what has been quietly holding us all along, long before the wind ever picked up.

Faith is not sustained by stronger emotions. It is sustained by deeper attachment.

And so, before you go, receive this as a blessing rather than a sixth movement:

"Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken." (Psalm 62:5-6)

Not a calm sea. A steady soul within it.

Until next week, keep walking the shoreline.

Practicing the Presence of God at the Anchor This Week

Name your anchor. What has quietly sustained your faith through changing seasons?

Tend hidden roots. Spend time with God in a way no one else will see.

Notice the currents. What is slowly shaping your heart without your realizing it?

Choose attachment over activity. Before asking what God wants you to do, ask how He is inviting you to remain in Him.

Stay where your roots can deepen. Faithfulness often grows beneath the surface long before it becomes visible.

*****

Continue Walking the Shoreline

If today's reflection encouraged you, continue the journey.

The Shoreline Series: Faith at the Edge is a weekly devotional exploring the places where God meets us between endings and beginnings, certainty and mystery, grief and hope.

The Journey So Far:

• Session 1: The Shoreline Where Life Meets God
• Session 2: Following the Horizon
• Session 3: The Anchor Beneath the Surface (You are here)

 

If something here resonated, you may also enjoy:

• The Place In Between Where Life Still Meets You
• The Fifth Season: When Closure Never Comes But Clarity Does
• Before Resurrection Was Recognized

The Favor of God

This word – FAVOR – can change your life. In the Old Testament it means grace, charm, acceptance, goodwill or desire. In the New Testament, “favor” is from the Greek word “Charis” or “Grace.” It is the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life; the spiritual condition of one governed by the power of divine grace. Lance Wallnau may have defined God’s favor the best when he said, “Favor is the special affection of God toward you that releases an influence on you, so that others are inclined to like you, or to cooperate with you.”

Favor is different from grace, although it comes from the same root word. Grace is undeserved, unmerited. But the Bible is full of instruction about how we can obtain favor. Often I think we believe that God’s favor is reserved for the giants of the faith, i.e. Moses, Joseph, Ruth, Nehemiah, Mary, Paul or John. These luminaries we know God granted favor to but we also realize that we are not in their spiritual class. We need to remember, however, that God's favor is not reserved just for the gifted of the flock. It is available to all of us no matter our stature. But how do we get it?

There are many Scriptures which teach that favor is obtained by the righteous, “For You, O Lord, will bless the righteous; with favor You will surround him as with a shield” (Psalm 5:12). “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth” (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). “When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7).

There really is no magic formula when it comes to God’s favor. He bestows it on anyone who favors Him and His commandments. In Matthew 6:33 we are told to put the kingdom of first and “all these things will be added unto you.” These “things” are referring to our physical needs – food, water, clothing and shelter. So we see that God will continually bless our lives even down to our basic needs IF we put His kingdom first in our lives. And I think this is where most of us struggle. The cares and trials of this world seemingly make it impossible to put the things of God first, yet this is how we obtain His favor. Of course, this makes perfect sense as God wants a relationship with us not just a token hour of worship each Sunday. He wants what is important to Him to be important to us.

I have found in my own life that as I have walked in obedience, God will meet my needs and the needs of my family in ways I would never have expected. Just this past week, I had a friend who I have only known for a few months give me bags of clothes and toys for my daughters because her daughter had outgrown them. I can’t even begin to express the gratitude I have toward this woman as we are not in a financial position to be able to afford to buy such things right now. This is just a simple example but I found a wonderful list of what God’s favor can do in your life. I have included it below. I hope it is a blessing as you realize all that God wants to bestow upon your life as you commit to following Him.

What God’s Favor Can Do in Your Life

1. Produce supernatural promotion and increase (Gen 39:21)

2. Bring restoration of everything the enemy has stolen (Exodus 3:21)

3. Bring honor in the midst of adversaries (Exodus 11:3)

4.  Produce increased assets (Deuteronomy 33:23)

5. Give great and unusual victories even against impossible odds (Joshua 6:20; 10: 9, 20)

6. Give recognition and promotion even when you seem to the least likely one to receive it
(1 Samuel 16:22)

7. Produce prominence and preferential treatment, favor and kindness (Esther 5:8)

8. Get petitions granted, even by ungodly civil authority (Esther 5:8)

9. Change rules, regulations, even laws if necessary to your advantage (Esther 8:5)

10. Win battles you did not even have to fight because God will fight them for you (Psalm 44:3)
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“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11

When Evil Triumphs

As I have continued to listen to the media coverage of the Penn State child abuse scandal, I was reminded of the famous quote, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

This certainly appears to be the case as Jerry Sandusky, the architect of the “Linebacker U” defense for the Penn State football team, was charged last weekend with sexually abusing eight boys over 15 years. The athletic director and a university vice president were charged with perjury and failure to report a 2002 allegation to police, and Head Coach Joe Paterno was fired following mounting fury that he did not do more about the 2002 allegation when it was brought to his attention. President Graham Spanier also was fired for similar reasons.

As I begin to research this story, I found an amazing sermon on “The Forum Terrace” that addresses how sin is able to proliferate through a society that does not address evil practices. I willl share a portion of it here.

The Bible tells us in James 4:17, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” Unlike sins of commission, such as, adultery, murder, stealing, and idolatry, sins of omission are the sins of doing nothing. Sin is not just doing bad as many think. People assume they are good, simply because they have done no evil. They forget that goodness is a positive quality; not merely the absence of doing evil. Sin is more than just a transgression of the law (1 John 3:4). Sin is also a failure to do the law.

Sin can also be defined as a failure to do as you ought to do. For example, the one-talent man in Jesus’ parable in the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 25:14-30) did not do anything outwardly sinful. Yet, it is affirmed that he was “wicked” (Matt. 25:26). He could have defended himself by protesting, “Wait just a minute there. I will have you know that I am not an embezzler, I did not squander the money through riotous living like the prodigal son, in no way was I dishonest, never have I been a drunkard, murderer, fornicator or thief of any kind. I was entrusted with a talent, and it is a talent I have returned.” He was still condemned a wicked man because he failed to do as he was commanded.

R.V.G. Tasker wrote, “It is probably true to say that we more often leave undone that things we ought to have done than do the things we ought not to have done.”

God did not create mankind just to avoid doing bad things. We are not Christians just because we shun evil practices. We were created in Christ to do good works (Eph. 2:10). We live the Christian life in order to do those good deeds which please God (Col. 1:10). No one persecutes us just because we do not murder and steal. Christians suffer for doing good in the name of Christ (1 Peter 3:17). By suffering persecution for doing good, we confirm and promote Christianity before the world (1 Peter. 2:13-15). God has equipped all Christians for doing good (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). He rewards us for doing good (Rom. 2:6-8). Doing good as we have been commanded brings us happiness (John 13:17) and others as well.

What is tragic about the Penn State scandal is that it could have been stopped NINE years ago. I suppose it is easy to look at that university and point fingers but in reality as Tasker said, how many things do we leave undone that we ought to do?

The founding pastor of my church used to say that so many of the issues and problems we face in life would be avoided if we just lived more of what the Bible says. The wisdom literature books – Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes – provide practical wisdom to enable a person to live a skillful life before God and men. It would do us well to daily read portions of these books in order to equip our minds with the wisdom and knowledge of God.

Let’s also pray for the victims of these crimes as they begin to try to heal and piece their lives together and let’s also pray for Penn State, especially the football team who are unfortunate victims of this tragedy and yet still have to suit up and play football each weekend.
*********************************************************
"A person's character is accurately measured by his reaction to life's inequities."
- Author unknown

How to Pray

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been discussing prayer and how it has been the primary catalyst that has spawned every revival throughout history. I have also touched on the power of prayer in the life of the believer.

This week, I wanted to spend some time discussing how to pray or what we should be saying to God when we are alone in our prayer closet. Do not feel embarrassed or ashamed if you have come to this blog without a good understanding of how to pray. Many have asked this same question, including the apostles in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6. Jesus responded by giving them the Lord’s Prayer, which is also known as the “Our Father.”

This prayer that Jesus shared was not meant to be a ritualistic saying that would be recited verbatim daily to God but was given as the pattern for our prayer life. God Himself has said that He is not interested in the vain repetition of words (Matthew 6:7) but in our heart attitude toward Him when we pray.

John MacArthur has a wonderful series of messages on the Lord’s Prayer in which he breaks down the prayer line by line and explains how to incorporate each wonderful truth into your prayer life. I would highly recommend you spend some time reading these messages so you can better understand how the Lord Himself told us to approach the throne room of God.

I also wanted to mention that prayer by nature is designed to bring us into the presence of the Living God that we may be transformed by Him. Prayer should never be approached with the thought that God is some type of sugar daddy waiting to give us every want and desire as some so called Christian movements would have you to believe.

Even a cursory reading of the Bible will reveal that when God’s people prayed, they most often reminded God of His words and promises to His people. Very rarely do you find a man or woman of God in the Bible praying anything that was not somehow related to God's Word or nature. And this is why the relationship between prayer and God’s Word is so critical. The Word of God enables us to know the mind of God which then transforms our prayers into petitions that are in accordance with His will.

I have often thought of how many prayers God hears on a daily basis from unbelievers asking for protection, healing, finances, etc. While God does answer these requests at times from non-believers, he is not obligated to answer them. He is, however, obligated by His very Word to answer believers when they pray.

It is God Himself who has set up the institution of prayer. It is Him who commands us to pray unceasingly, fervently, and earnestly for all things. E.M. Bounds states in his book, The Weapon of Prayer, “Prayer puts God’s work in His hands, and keeps it there. It looks to Him constantly and depends on Him implicitly to further His own cause. Prayer is but faith resting in, acting with, and leaning on and obeying God. This is why God loves it so well, why He puts all power into its hands, and why He so highly esteems men of prayer.”

I truly believe the way to have a more fruitful prayer life is to immerse yourself in the Word of God. The two just cannot be divorced from each other. If you are trying to figure out where to begin, I would suggest you start with the Book of Psalms which is found in the Old Testament. The Psalms are songs and prayers to God. I often pray them myself to God when I find that I do not have any words of my own. Psalms 23 and 91 are wonderful Psalms that speak of God’s protection and sovereignty.

You could also read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John found at the beginning of the New Testament) if you want to know Jesus’ words so you can remember and recall them when you are praying. The more you know God’s Word, the more you will be able to effectively pray for God’s will in all things.

Please feel free to comment to let me know how your prayer life is progressing. I hope and pray that these last few blogs on prayer have been a blessing.

Adjusting Perspective

August marks 18 months since I left the workforce. Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about all the Lord has taught me during this time about priorities and purpose. Up until I left the field of Public Relations, I would categorize my life as one that was intensely focused on money. While I certainly was never one to dream about being a millionaire, thoughts of money pretty much dominated my life. I justified these thoughts by clouding them in a sense of fiscal responsibility toward my family. After all, in this economy a family needs two incomes just to survive, right?

As I felt the Lord prodding me to stay home for more than a year before I was laid off from my job, my first thought was how everything would get paid based solely on my husband’s salary, even though his income was more than enough once we subtracted out the weekly daycare payment. But, even more frightening than the money, was wondering if I would be truly satisfied with just being home with my two daughters. I had erroneously told myself for years that I was a better mother by working part-time. My logic was based on the premise that my work was something for me and the days I did not work were for my husband and daughters. Of course, I worked in a profession that was deadline oriented, which meant my laptop was always on even on my days off.

When I stopped working, the change in my daughters, who were two and four at the time was dramatic. While they have always been happy children, they sensed that I made a choice to be with them and that feeling of security turned their world around. Within a few weeks, my husband commented on how much happier and content the girls appeared to be, and how he was feeling more peace at work knowing that I was home with the girls every day, and would not be waiting for him to come through the door so I could login to check emails. I have come to realize that we really do not need the Lord to convince us of the benefit of staying home. We only need to observe our own children.

As the weeks turned into months, I began praying for the Lord to help me not begin submitting resumes because of a sense of diminishing self worth. For so long I had tied so much of who I was to what I did, and how much I got paid, that I was almost unable to see myself in any other terms. Then, something wonderful happened. The Lord provided opportunities for me to serve others. And this, I believe, is really the whole key to the abundant life that Jesus promised would be ours if our lives were lost in Him. All of our talents, abilities, and desires are God-given for the explicit purpose of serving Him and others. I often joke with former colleagues that the trick to performing meaningful work is to not get paid.

There is a great book by Max Lucado entitled, The Cure for the Common Life that addresses the issue of people’s discontentment in the work place. Lucado explains that most people from an early age realize they have an innate talent or ability, but many never pursue it because either they do not see a way they can make money from it, or they get promoted out of their sweet spot in life. The Bible is clear that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and that the Lord even knows how many hairs are on our head (Matthew 10:30). His desire is to have each of us use the abilities He gave us in service to Him and others (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

I know what you’re thinking. What about making enough money to support our families? We have to pay the mortgage, buy food, make tuition payments, etc. The two ideas are really not as divorced from each other as you might think. The Lord promises in Matthew 6:33 that if “we seek His kingdom and righteousness first, all these things will be added unto us.” These “things” in this verse are in reference to the basics of life – shelter, food, clothes. And this really is the key. If the Lord is our focus, then we stop trying to keep up with the Joneses, don’t we? Having the biggest house or newest sports car takes a back seat to serving the Lord and ministering to others.

Randy Alcorn has written a brilliant book on this subject of serving and sacrificial giving called The Treasure Principle. Alcorn speaks about storing up eternal treasure in your life as opposed to earthly treasures that will fade away. But more than just storing up treasures for eternity, your life today - right now - can be changed if you choose to seek the Lord. If you have never come to know the Savior or the abundant life which He offers, it can be yours  this very moment. Romans 10:9-10 tells you how - “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”