5 Days of Prayer - Day 5

Psalm 142

A Contemplation of David. A Prayer when he was in the cave

We finish up with a prayer of David.  We know that David was a man of prayer.  He was a man that would seek for God, turn to God and depend on God in almost every situation.  As a boy he took on a lion and a bear and he said it was the Lord that gave him the victory.  He faced Goliath and again it is clear that his confidence for this situation and confrontation was a love for and an abiding faith in God.  His life was in danger more times that he could count.  He was on the run for a number of years.  Years that would be described as anything but easy or comfortable.  He was a fugitive on the run, walking a tightrope between his “friends” and his “enemies”.

This psalm was written for one such event in David’s life.  There were a couple of times that we see him in caves.  And it was in one of these times that he takes this psalm from.  It is interesting that in the title we see it is a contemplation ... a Maschil ... a psalm for instruction.  It seems that David took something important away from this experience and he writes it into a special psalm and a prayer.

Again a cry.  That is what prayer is after all.  Us calling out to God.  Speaking with Him.  Telling Him our hurts, fears, troubles.  Seeking to know Him better and experience His friendship and care.

David says he was overwhelmed.  He saw traps around him.  He felt alone, without a friend.  He was being chased, persecuted.  He felt imprisoned.

Even so, as David considers he realizes that God knew his path.  God was there with Him.  He knew the situation.  Even though every refuge had failed him he realized that God was his refuge.  He knew that without God he would not survive, because he was not strong enough, yet he was convinced that God would deal well with him.

It is sad to note that at one point David cries out to God that “no one cares for my soul”.  It is comforting to know that God cares, but it also seems a call for us to care for the state and the lives of others.  To help them and pray for them.  In the end David sees just this.  God brings him out of his prison to a place of praise and a place where he is surrounded by the righteous, by those that care.  And, he can say, “You will be very good to me”.

As you pray throughout the last day of this 5 Days we hope that it has been a blessing and encouragement to you.  How good to know that God is not apathetic towards us and that He listens and answers our cries to Him!

Please Pray for..

1 Sunday - first Sunday service 

2 worship, teaching/translation, kids, fellowship

3 faithfulness and growth

4 God would be glorified

5 Days of Prayer - Day 4

Psalm 102

Prayer of the Afflicted, when he pours our his complaint before the Lord

As I read the beginning of this Psalm, I again see a very similar pattern to what we have seen in the first two Psalms the first two days.  A cry to be heard.  A cry to answer and to answer quickly.  A need expressed.  A situation that is difficult.  But in this Psalm the author seems to be in especially dire circumstances.  I see at first glance a psalm much like some of the others.

Spurgeon, on the other hand, sees not only a person in need.  He sees not just a person born into a time of sorrow and enduring a time of suffering, but he sees a person “afflicted more for others than for himself, more for Zion and the house of the Lord, than for his own house.”  He sees a man, a patriot, “moaning”, pained for his country.

Life is hard sometimes.  Sometimes it is hard because of sin, but sometimes hard because it is just "life".  We all have our own various problems.  We all have our “enemies” that "fight" against us.  They are not necessarily enemies because we consider them enemies but because they war against our life and soul.  It seems that the person in this psalm has many of those, and petitions God concerning them.  However, he also sees his country in a hard time and it bothers him.

We see that this person has a heart afflicted not just with his own difficulties but also with the difficulties of his nation.  He has a heart afflicted with things that concern God.  He knows that the current state of affairs is not what God has in mind.  He know that God has a time and a plan for Zion, His kingdom.  He wants for God to be feared and praised.  We can get pretty self focused sometimes, and it is good to realize that there are others in the same place we are and perhaps we can help them.  To understand there is a world of needs beyond ourselves.  The author seems to realize this and it moves his prayer.

The writer reflects on God’s mercy, that His ear is attentive to those that need it most and that He will listen to their prayer.  And as we read the verses 17-21 I can’t help but be reminded of what Jesus said in Luke 4:18-19.  He read the prophecy of Isaiah saying that He had come to give good news to the poor, proclaim freedom to those imprisoned, to give sight back to those that couldn’t see, to free the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  These gracious words were spoken at the beginning of Jesus’ years of ministry.  They were words telling the people what He had come to do and what they could expect of Him.  He comes to us in graciousness and proclaims a future of hope.

The author of this psalm realizes that there is more than this life.  There is more to life than riches.  There is more to be freed from than just prison.  There is a darkness deeper than blindness.  There is slavery that is more oppressive.  We truly are in need of God’s favor.  The things of this life are temporary and God will change them.  He desires to change them.  Our writer brings our attention to these things.  Is our heart affected by the things that affect God’s heart?  Do we have in view what God has in mind?  His prayer is that he, and we, would place our hope in and seek the eternal.

Please pray for

1 People that come to the Sunday service would be challenged and taught by God's word

2 For a place for us to meet and provision needed to meet there

3 For wisdom in knowing how to best help and encourage others

5 Days of Prayer - Day 3

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses the man of God

I have been thinking a little about where I live.  In fact, I can hear a conversation in the next room teaching our children about what country, what city, what street and the house number in which we live.  It is the place where we live ... or is it.  Well, it is and it isn’t ... it is kind of confusing.  God called Abraham out of his dwelling place.  First out of Ur.  Then He called him out of Haran where he had gotten sidetracked.  The book of Hebrews goes on to tell us he was an alien and a stranger even in Canaan, the land to which God had called him, and that he was looking for “the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God”.  Here Moses indicates that God is our place.  He is the builder and the maker.  It is not a temporal place.  God is eternal.  It is not a dwelling that will pass away or fail.

People are temporal and our sin causes our destruction.  We last a moment in comparison to the mountains, and the mountains a moment in comparison to God.  Our lives are a small thing in the framework of eternity, cut from what they might have been by sin and righteous judgment.  The metaphors are familiar.  Sleep.  It seems you just lay down and it is morning.  Grass.  It grows quickly and dies quickly.

Because of this ... because we have 70 or perhaps 80 years of life, Moses prays that God would teach us to count our days... to consider them wisely.  Sin ravages us.  It steals away the best parts of life.

As Moses considers this ... as we consider this with him ... it causes a cry to rise in the heart.  Forgiveness and compassion.  Mercy and blessing.    “Satisfy us early with Your mercy.”  The earlier we realize our sinful state and look to this righteous and compassionate God the sooner we can find rest, rejoicing and gladness.  Moses asks that God’s work would appear to His servants and His glory to their children.  He understood something important about God.  God as righteous judge can be a fearful thing, but that God’s heart is one of mercy, compassion and blessing.  As Moses understands this he then calls people to consider and realize.  He calls them to be wise.  He calls them to blessing.

That is what the church is supposed to do, call people to consider, to understand.  Sin and wrath are a fact our existence.  However, God’s love, compassion, mercy and blessing are also available to those who will hear, consider and be wise.  Who will return to an eternal dwelling.

Pray for...

1 Our team working together as a united body

2 worship and children's ministry development

3 English kids outreach

4 God to draw people to Himself

5 Days of Prayer - Day 2

Psalm 86

A Prayer of David

“Dear Jesus, Thank you for this day, thank you...”  Sometimes prayer can seem pretty repetitious.  We have a tendency to start our prayers similarly, to pray similar things, to ask things that God has pretty much promised already.  Yet, as we read this prayer it is not so different, at the beginning, from the prayer from day 1.  Certainly there are different expressions here but in general we see a pleading for God to hear, a declaration of pure/holy actions and intentions and an assurance that God will listen and answer. There is a difference between vain repetition and repeated prayer.  As David starts on familiar and solid ground he then branches out to encompass worship, reliance and request based on his need, experience and faith.  Hear us, bow down Your ear, we trust in You for You are good and ready, forgiving and abundant in mercy.  You will answer.

David is moved to consider this God to whom he cries out.  We also consider along with the psalmist who God is, and what He is like.  No other like you!  No work like your work!  You are so great that all will worship before You.

This is God, worthy of proclamation.  Look at the great things that He has done for David.

• Great mercy toward him
• soul delivered from death - the grave, hell
• full of grace and compassion, patient, abundant mercy and truth - even to those who refuse.

David wants God.  He wants these things that God has given Him in abundance. He wants them for himself but he also wants others to see.  He says, “Teach me your ways... unite my heart to fear Your name.”  He connects that with glorifying God’s name.  He connects with a personal testimony of what God has done for him.  Then he asked God to show a sign.  It is not for himself.  It is for those that have refused God, who have not “set God before them”.  He wants them to realize their wrong.  It is our wrongs, our foolishness that we are ashamed of, however how often those things can be ignored or pushed off.  David wished that people would know the God that he knew and be ashamed of their failure to turn to Him. To find the same mercy, compassion, long suffering and salvation that David knew.  The same peace with God.

Of course these are things that we also have experienced from the hand of God.  Like David our prayer should rise, not only for our own salvation or blessing but, for the realization of others the compassion mercy and patient love of God for all people.  “Teach me Your ways ... I will walk in Your truth ... I will glorify Your name...”  May we be taught that we may walk and proclaim the ways of God for His glory.  May our lives be a good sign.  As a result may many know the help and comfort of God!

Please pray...

1 God would be proclaimed - that He would prepared hearts for Himself

2 Spiritual strongholds and barriers removed

3 wisdom concerning a place to meet, provision for that place

4 preaching/teaching to be in the Spirit's power

5 Days of Prayer - Day 1

Psalm 17

A prayer of David

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!  The cry rings out and begs to be heard.  Listen to me!  This is important!  This needs to be heard.  I need it to be heard.  Whether it is a messenger of the king or a cry for help, such a cry looks to be heard.  Its hope is that those to whom it is directed will listen and respond.  That they will find the cry to be good and right and worthy of response.  In truth, whenever we cry out to God we hope that He will, not only hear (yet we believe that He will), but we hope also that He will find our prayers to Him just and worthy.  Each time we approach to Him we, of course, cry out wishing to be heard.  However, there are those times when we especially want God’s attention. A desire of our heart.  His answer to our prayer.

It is appropriate as we begin our week of prayer that we have this cry and desire in our hearts to be heard.  That we examine our prayers, our reasons and our ways as we approach to Him.  Of course, we have the added comfort that we approach God because of the righteousness that we have been given in Christ.  He is our strength.  The one that keeps us in our ways.  The one that keeps our feet from slipping and shows the path before us so that we won’t stumble.  It is because of His great and precious promises that we can approach with confidence.  He is one that we can trust and He will never fail to keep faith with us as we walk in trust toward Him.  Trust because He is trustworthy but also trust with actions and attitudes match with His commands, ways and desires.

We are the “apple of His eye” and even as Jesus longed to gather Jerusalem under His “wings” He loves us and longs for us.  If we will be gathered then He will overshadow us.  

This is important because we see that we are not without enemies.  Even more than the warrior enemies of David, who fight with weapons that maim and kill, there is a spiritual enemy.  He is a lion and a destroyer.  He would frustrate and tear apart all that we are and all that God wants to do in, for and through us.  

Therefore it is appropriate for us to realize as we consider any spiritual endeavor that it must be a work of the Spirit of God.  It must be done in His power and protection or we will surely be overwhelmed.  As we desire that God would establish a work - a work directly opposed to the attitudes and principles of the enemy and the normal cravings of life - then God must be its author and architect.

Finally, we see the final line of this prayer of David.  “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.”  More than anything we do, accomplish or don’t accomplish, plan, achieve or experience, it is more important who we are and will become.  God doesn’t need people to do anything for Him.  There is nothing that we can truly add to Him.  However, He desires us and fully desires that we awake in His likeness,  As we live and do we must keep in mind that He desires us.  He takes us through steps of faith to makes us more like Him.

Please Prayer for

1. A work of God's Spirit in us and in Maribor to establish what He wills and desires

2. Wisdom for all aspects of this new ministry - worship, Bible study, translation, kids ministry

3. God's Protection and Power

4. To seek God and not the work - to be satisfied only with Him and His likeness