LONG Prayers

 

Monday, September 14, 2026

I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.  I sought the Lord in my day of trouble.  My hands were continually lifted up all night long; I refused to be comforted.  I think of God; I groan; I meditate; my spirit becomes weak. Selah

You have kept me from closing my eyes; I am troubled and cannot speak.  I consider days of old, years long past.  At night I remember my music; I meditate in my heart, and my spirit ponders.  “Will the Lord reject forever
and never again show favor? Has his faithful love ceased forever? Is his promise at an end for all generations? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” Selah

So I say, “I am grieved that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”        I will remember the Lord’s works; yes, I will remember your ancient wonders.  I will reflect on all you have done and meditate on your actions.  God, your way is holy.  What god is great like God?  You are the God who works wonders; you revealed your strength among the peoples.  With power you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

The water saw you, God.  The water saw you; it trembled.  Even the depths shook.  The clouds poured down water.  The storm clouds thundered; your arrows flashed back and forth.  The sound of your thunder was in the whirlwind; lightning lit up the world.  The earth shook and quaked.  Your way went through the sea and your path through the vast water, but your footprints were unseen.  You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.  Psalm 77:1-20

Whenever I hear the phrase “long prayer” my mind goes back to childhood days when any prayer seemed too long at the dinner table when I was hungry.  A bit sacrilegious at worst, and ungrateful at best, I just hated to let good food get cold!

But another sense of “long” praying is when you’re suffering, and it seems like Heaven has closed-up shop for the season.  The Psalmist has prayed through the night, hands lifted up like a broken puppy, and he wonders, has God forgotten to be gracious?  This is the lament of one who counted upon God’s help and feels so alone, as if the universe has moved on without him.  The game is over…all is lost.  Ever felt that way?  Ever felt like just giving up?

Well, don’t start the pity party just yet; the Psalmist was only warming up.  In lament praying, he has started by owning his feelings and assessing what he can see. 

¹⁰ So I say, “I am grieved that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”       

But then…faith takes over:

^11-13 I will remember the Lord’s works; yes, I will remember your ancient wonders.  I will reflect on all you have done and meditate on your actions.  God, your way is holy.  What god is great like God?  

The praying man begins to pray in the confidence of a man with broken confidence; shaken by the world and all it holds, he does what is unthinkable to those who don’t know God….he lifts up faith, the evidence of things not seen.[1]  He restates his confidence in God’s love and care.

For You Today

If life has handed you nothing but lament lately, recall that life is always full of that.  There is plenty of suffering to be had by all.  But while you suffer, make your long prayer a Godly one…own your shaken faith, and then lift that faith to the God who is the author of it all.  Do your lamenting well.  As He loved Israel, He will also love you!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images: Pexels from Pixabay  Unless noted, Scripture from Christian Standard Bible^©

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[1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Hebrews 11:1

 

Monday, October 25, 2021

Praise the Lord!  For he has heard my cry for mercy.  The Lord is my strength and shield.  I trust him with all my heart.  He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.  I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.  Psalm 28:6-7

I have just informed my church that this conference year will be my last.  It’s the strangest thing to be going through a most difficult time, a time when I have not received any definitive answers about my health, and about what might be ahead.  Other than continuing to write, and….just continuing to breathe…I have few answers or a grand plan.  The future doesn’t look bleak…just unclear, unknown, and that (for most people…including yours truly…is unnerving at best).

And yet, there is this sense of abiding joy.  I know the source of this settled, unwavering trust; throughout the last forty years of ministry the tough times and glad times have been filled with it!  My family has never enjoyed an abundance of material riches, but our needs have always been supplied.  There have been numerous glitches to health and financial plans.  Not every attempt to serve was an overwhelming success.  And yet, the joy.

For me the consistent factor in all of life’s joys, sorrows, gladness, and confusion, has been the echoing answer of God’s mercy.  And whenever I fully-rest in that mercy, God has always taught me to trust…and, whatever the outcome (from a human perspective)…it always ends up the same way…praise, joy, and the song of thanksgiving.  I wind-up giving God the glory for His glorious condescension; the great God of the universe taking time to hear me and care for me.

For You Today

What unnerves you?  Is it financial pitfalls?  Is it relationship gone sour?  Is it job security vanishing into thin air?  Is it any other of a thousand things that can go wrong?

If the future is unclear, take a look into the past, and see where God has been watching over you, calling to you, wanting nothing from you, except everything.  In Christ, God gave you everything, and His investment is still certain.  His love is still there.  His unfailing goodness and mercy still track your days.  Spend some time there today and see if your heart doesn’t burst with joy.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

 

Sorrow Leaves When Joy is Born

 

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

“In a little while you won’t see me anymore.  But a little while after that, you will see me again.”  Some of the disciples asked each other, “What does he mean when he says, ‘In a little while you won’t see me, but then you will see me,’ and ‘I am going to the Father’?  And what does he mean by ‘a little while’?  We don’t understand.”  Jesus realized they wanted to ask him about it, so he said, “Are you asking yourselves what I meant?  I said in a little while you won’t see me, but a little while after that you will see me again.  I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice.  You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy.  It will be like a woman suffering the pains of labor.  When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world.  So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.  John 16: 16-22

I have never given birth to a child (not exactly a newsflash there), but I’ve been there when it happened.  We’ve shared previously on Rocky Road[1] how I missed the birth of our first two children, because Dads weren’t allowed in the delivery room back then.  But I was there for the third, and pain giving way to overwhelming joy is unmistakable!

Jesus’ described the pain as “anguish”, and he called new life “joy”.  And it’s because of the nurturing gene surging through every part of the mother’s body.  Call it hormones and chemistry if you will, but the desire to procreate and preserve is hard-wired into the process by the Master Creator. 

I watched a video on Youtube recently of The Cat Who Adopts Baby Ducklings.  It was bizarre to see a feline accepting orphaned baby ducks as part of her new litter.  Cats normally don’t become caretakers for birds, they eat birds!  But this Momma cat had just given birth, and couldn’t help herself.  Even months later the bond between mother feline and grown ducks displayed what God built-in to His creation – we are born to hold life up…even when it goes against our nature to self-preserve and promote.  There is too much joy beyond the anguish to resist!

Now apply that to Jesus’ disciples in the upper room when he told them the passion was about to begin, and the pain would be unbearable for them.  But, like the passing of labor that gives way to the newborn baby, pain would transform into great joy!

Jesus had told Nicodemus if he ever wanted to see the Kingdom of God he would have to be born again[2].  That reference has lasted two millennia because of the joy untold millions have experienced in the passing of sorrow’s pain, when a sinner’s confession transports him into the joyful presence of love unbounded.  Words are totally inadequate at this point.  Simply look at the faces of a newborn child with the one who gave him free room and board for nine months.  Sorrow leaves when joy is born!

For You Today

Jesus said that no one would be able to rob his disciples of the joy he had planned for them.  He meant it – and it happened – and he meant it for us too!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day! 

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] See:  Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

[2] See John 3

 

Through the Valley of Weeping

 

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs.  The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings.  They will continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.  Psalm 84:5-7

Scripture speaks to us on many levels in the same passage.  On one level, the Psalmist speaks of longing for the temple in Jerusalem; on another, this is a picture of those longing for the eternal temple in the very presence of God.  The pilgrimage of which the Psalmist speaks is a journey in this land; for the Psalmist, the valley of weeping is like arriving near Jerusalem through the western Valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna.  It is the place of the most-despised history of Jerusalem’s past, a garbage dump of child sacrifice, tombs, and demons.  It is the place Jesus referred to when he warned people of the dangers of the fires of hell.[1]

By contrast, the Psalmist said passing through this place that borders Jerusalem, would unveil the most refreshing waters of beauty imaginable.  This is what it is like to have walked the arduous pilgrimage road to Jerusalem in those days, braving the dangers of mountains, wild animals, robbers, and thirst, knowing the ground was cursed with the blood of thousands of criminals, sacrificed children, and garbage lit on fire, only to arrive at the holiest of cities.  To call it refreshing hardly does this image justice.

A deeper, more eternal view of this Psalm, casts even the holy city as a place to leave, in favor of the holy city not made with hands – the New Jerusalem.  For any who kneel in honor and reverence of JHWH, this is the end of our holy journey.  We call it Heaven, God’s haven of rest, the throne room, and a thousand other euphemisms of joy, peace, strength, and eternal life.  We call it “home”.

Shortly after I got home from church this past Sunday I learned of the passing of a dear friend.  Donna was the one my bride called “Sissy”.  Elizabeth was an only child so the longing for a sister, and the deep friendship we shared over the years, was a natural.  Along with her husband, Dan, this couple was, perhaps, the happiest, most joyful pair we know.  You could not spend more than a few minutes with them before the laughing began. 

Having served together at a church early in our ministry, we knew of some of their sorrow which was mingled with the joy.  Dan and Donna buried a son, taken too soon. 

I think of my friends this morning because I love them, and because I mourn Donna’s passing, and share some of Dan’s grief.  We talked with Dan by phone on Sunday, sharing memories and past times of joy.  And we spoke of the reunion of God’s family that’s coming one day.  We spoke of what the Psalmist calls those  refreshing waters of the holy city.  And I’m envious of Donna’s day today, splashing around in refreshing, complete, unhindered joy.

I am so happy for “Sissy” and so broken for my friend.  And that’s the way it is on this life’s road…each mile has its own sorrows and joys; each pathway holds its dangers and snares. 

But….one day….

For You Today

Have you set your mind on a pilgrimage to God’s holy city?  The Psalmist says that is where you find joy and refreshing.  That’s a pretty good place to be when your journey takes you through the valley of weeping; it’s where the masks come off, and social distancing evaporates!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] Matthew 5:22 (also see James 3:6)

Enough

 

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

And they left Egypt and returned to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan.  “Joseph is still alive!” they told him.  “And he is governor of all the land of Egypt!”  Jacob was stunned at the news—he couldn’t believe it.  But when they repeated to Jacob everything Joseph had told them, and when he saw the wagons Joseph had sent to carry him, their father’s spirits revived.  Then Jacob exclaimed, “It must be true!  My son Joseph is alive!  I must go and see him before I die.”  So Jacob set out for Egypt with all his possessions.  And when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac.  During the night God spoke to him in a vision. “Jacob! Jacob!” he called.  “Here I am,” Jacob replied.  “I am God, the God of your father,” the voice said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make your family into a great nation.  I will go with you down to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes.”     Genesis 45:25 – 46:4

If you do a pulse-check on most any of the days of Jacob’s life, you’ll find a calculating, selfish, wheeler-dealer.  Stuff like that always comes back to haunt you.  Jacob did not escape that.  After his ambitious conniving to steal his brother’s birthright and his father’s blessing, Jacob had to leave town in the middle of the night to avoid everyone’s anger.  It cost him twenty years estrangement in the school of hard knocks.  He lived with his uncle Laban, a much sharper knife in the drawer when it came to manipulation.  The PhD degree Jacob earned in his time spent with Laban was the futility of a lack of integrity.

Another inescapable casualty of Jacob’s manipulative lifestyle was how his children learned at their daddy’s knee how to live that way too.  The older sons were jealous of their father’s attention to the youngest, Joseph, and eventually hatched a plan to throw him in a pit and watch him die.  They eventually settled for selling him into slavery to a band of nomadic traders.  With Joseph out of sight, they led Jacob to believe he’d been eaten by wild animals.  For the next twenty years the old man lived in paralyzing grief, mourning for Joseph, the son of his old age.

Finally, a famine gripped the land and Jacob sent his brother-killing sons to seek food down in Egypt.  The sons wound up right in front of Joseph, their supposedly long-dead little brother, who had managed to survive and thrive; he was the second most powerful man in the world under Egypt’s pharaoh. 

Now, the whole point of this epic story of family-fail came next, as Joseph is reunited with his murderous brothers, forgives them, and sends them home to Jacob.  Once Jacob gets over the shock of Joseph still being alive, he knows he must see this long-lost son face-to-face before he dies.

As he’s travelling to Egypt God spoke to Jacob in a vision assuring him that all will be well, and the promises of God would be carried out, and his son would be there to tenderly close the old man’s eyes in his final moments of life on this planet.  And, for Jacob, a man once steeped in trickery, thievery, deceit, and conspiracy, which had all (predictably) turned into a massive pile of internal strife and sorrow, now humbled by the effect of God’s mercy extended to such a one as Jacob the manipulator, imposter, despicable excuse for a human being, one word from God was…ENOUGH!

For You Today

No matter how much you may have made a mess of your opportunities in this life, or destroyed trust with family, friends, or even your own integrity, the promise of God is mercy to those who repent, humbling themselves before God, to seek His face[1].  Jacob did all that in a wrestling match with God one night near the Jabbok River.  He meant to get right with God, and, in mercy, God forgave Jacob and gave him a new name, Israel, the special, chosen, friend of God.

His story isn’t about airing the family’s dirty laundry; his story is all about letting you know this God you’ve been hunting forgives…and He’s only waiting for you to come calling.  And, when you do, you’ll see…like Jacob, it will be…ENOUGH!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Jacob’s family problems see Dysfunction in the Desert and No Place Before God - Part 2      

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[1] 2 Chronicles 7:14

 

What Sorrow Awaits...

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Monday, November 4, 2019

“What sorrow awaits you who build cities with money gained through murder and corruption!  Has not the Lord of Heaven’s Armies promised that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes?  They work so hard, but all in vain!  For as the waters fill the sea, the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the Lord.  

“What sorrow awaits you who make your neighbors drunk!  You force your cup on them so you can gloat over their shameful nakedness.  But soon it will be your turn to be disgraced.  Come, drink and be exposed!  Drink from the cup of the Lord’s judgment, and all your glory will be turned to shame.  You cut down the forests of Lebanon.  Now you will be cut down.  You destroyed the wild animals, so now their terror will be yours.  You committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the towns with violence.  “What good is an idol carved by man, or a cast image that deceives you?  How foolish to trust in your own creation—a god that can’t even talk!  

What sorrow awaits you who say to wooden idols, ‘Wake up and save us!’  To speechless stone images you say, ‘Rise up and teach us!’  Can an idol tell you what to do?  They may be overlaid with gold and silver, but they are lifeless inside.  But the Lord is in his holy Temple.  Let all the earth be silent before him.”  Habakkuk 2:12-20[2]

A true prophet only speaks the words God puts in his mouth.  And it’s a bit more than threatening to hear over and over, what sorrow awaits, especially when the voice thunders from Heaven’s throne!  The targets of these warnings are leaders of nations that have the lust to control other lands through violence and manipulation.  

The payoff for such evil will look like the landscape of the Sahara, or the denuded Brazilian forests.

This message of Habakkuk is all about climate change, but not the physical actions of slaughtering endangered animal species or cutting down Lebanon’s cedar forests.  This is about systemic evil that ignores God’s Word, thinking our Sovereign Creator is like the idols carved from the cut-down trees, unable to speak or have any consequential factor in the affairs of men…especially powerful leaders of powerful nations.  The prophecy falling from the lips of Habakkuk decry the evil earthly leaders who are stockpiling misery against the day of judgment.

While this prophecy was spoken to the corrupt leaders of the Chaldeans, who had invaded and devastated Judah in the 7^th Century^(B.C.) it also speaks a word to our culture.  The prophet has asked ^(1:12-17) if wrong and violence are to continue forever.[1]  It doesn’t seem right for the ungodly Chaldean nations to triumph over God’s people, but the Lord’s answer to Habakkuk’s question is that the violence of the invaders is going to be used by God to bring Judah to her knees, and, like the Northern Kingdom a century before, they will know the devastating consequences of forsaking their God. 

In the end God will bring retribution on the likes of the Chaldean raiders, but Israel will be forgiven and restored.

The word for 21^st Century leaders is cautionary; if you use the manipulative, lying, bullying as did the strong-willed Chaldean/Babylonian invaders, you become them! 

And their fate becomes yours; what sorrow awaits!

For You Today

Strong-arming weaker nations and bullying your way through life will bring its reward, but it won’t be pretty!  Truly strong leaders are those who trust in Christ, and fear God.  These are the ones who are silent before Holy God, who is in His sanctuary. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO 

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

[2] For another post on this text see:  Fingers With a Brain

[3] Thompson Chain Reference Bible notes (B.B. Kirkbride Bible Co, Indianapolis, Ind., 1964 ), 205

Fruit of the Spirit - Part 3 GOODNESS

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Thursday, May 23, 2019

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against these things!                  Galatians 5:22-23

We are looking at the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, those qualities and characteristics which develop in people who have genuinely surrendered to following Christ.  Today’s focus is on the fruit of goodness.

Rats, according to a NY Times article[2] are taking over New York City.  One resident was quoted:  

“I’m a former Marine so I’m not going to be squeamish, but this is bad,” said Pablo Herrera, a 58-year-old mechanic who has counted up to 30 rats while walking on his block in Prospect Heights, just around the corner from the stately Brooklyn Museum.[3]

How do rats play a part in describing goodness?  It’s not a secret that they are nocturnal, living in darkness and with garbage.  They can be aggressive and pose a health threat to humans.  But, because all of God’s creation is good, which applies even to rats, there is a purpose to their existence, albeit the exact nature of that purpose escapes me.  When I get to heaven I’ll include that in the questions I ask.

Sometimes you start with the opposite of what you want to talk about; it helps provide contrast.  For instance, light is brighter when you describe darkness.  To describe goodness we begin with rats, one of the more despicable creatures on planet earth.  By comparison, goodness is a characteristic of the light and lives above the garbage level of anything.

The popular saying is:  God is good; the rejoinder is:  All the time!  What we mean is God, because of the goodness of His character, everything He does, says, or thinks, has goodness as its’ foundation and purpose.  There is nothing God does which is not “good”.

At this statement unbelief pushes back:  Wait…what?  What about the children that died in the mudslides in India…what about murder in the US?  Are those good?  Such is the nature of unbelief, but faith answers:  What about the cross?  God, who is good (all the time, and in everything) knew man would do things like murder, and that existence with free will would create all kinds of collateral damage to even a perfect creation; humans make choices, and with choice comes pain.  God’s good design is to wipe away all tears; his way is to end sorrow, death, and all evil.  That is the nature of light chasing darkness from the room.  That is goodness!  That’s why the cross was necessary.

Our task as cooperating beings in God’s kingdom is to not only mirror that goodness by doing good things, it is to accept what the Spirit of God is trying to accomplish in us, changing our character from rat-like, living in darkness and feeding on garbage, to Christ-like, living in light, and feasting on His word.

Evangelist Vance Havner used to say about the dark things in our souls that, like so many other dark dwellers, when you lay them on the altar of God’s light, the creepy-crawly things of darkness must scatter.

For You Today

Let the goodness of Christ dwell in you today; open the door on God’s light for your soul, and let it chase away the rats of darkness.

Scripture finishes our devotional thought of producing Kingdom fruit:

The seeds of good deeds become a tree of life;  Proverbs 11:30a

If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging.  If it is giving, give generously.  If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously.  And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.  Romans 12:8

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com  
             Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[2] Rats Are Taking Over New York City   Image:  Pixabay.com

[3] Ibid.