Thursday 8 December 2016

December 8

Prayer:
Prayer: From the very beginning, O God, you have asked us to call you upon, to obey your gracious law, and to turn to you in times of trouble. We have often failed in this. Yet you, O God, have not failed us. We thank you, God, for continuing to reach out to us - for sending to us, in the fullness of time, Jesus Christ, your only Son, to intercede for us, and for pouring out upon us the Holy Spirit, to guide and lead and to comfort and to challenge us day by day. Help us Lord to turn to you, even as you are turned toward us.[1]

Scripture: Psalm 85
“Strife Closed in the Sod”[2]

The peace of God, it is no peace.
But strife closed in the sod.
Yet Christians, pray for but one thing:
That marv’lous peace of God.
— William Alexander Percy (1885-1942)

Strife closed in the sod. Well, I know that William Percy was a southern farmer, a plantation owner. Is it a farming image, pointing to the struggle and hard work, the blisters, the aching back that it takes to make the soil produce? That God’s peace is not a quiet contentment, but that it grows out of struggle and difficulty and pain and suffering? That peace, wholeness, comes after being cut in pieces?

I think so. Let me tell you more about William Percy, who lived nearly all of his life in Greenville, Mississippi… When the Ku Klux Klan came to Greenville, Percy spoke out against them vehemently. Percy raised three orphaned children, sent penniless young people to college, helped the jobless find jobs, and supplemented the salaries of black preachers in the area.

And remember, this is all in the 1920s and 1930s: forty years before the civil rights struggle. But that is how Percy followed God’s will. You know what that would have gotten him, don’t you? Conflict and struggle and pain and suffering… And yet that is where he found God’s peace, “the marv’lous peace of God.”

— Excerpt from Thomas A Renquist’s Topsy-Turvy: Living in the Biblical World: Gospel Sermons for Sundays After Pentecost, p.36.

Application: Praying the Scripture is one of the many ways that we interact with the Word of God. As a spiritual discipline, it helps us become more tuned in to the Father’s heart as we pray His words.

You are invited to pray through Psalm 85, a prayer for restoration from Israel’s national distress and defeat, in which the psalmist struggles to make sense of Israel’s recent suffering as he remembers God’s past mercy on Israel (vv.1-3); asks God to restore Israel (vv.4-6); recalls God’s promises (vv.7-9); and looks to the future God’s righteousness will bring (vv. 10-13).

One way to pray through Psalm 85 is to follow the psalmist’s pattern of prayer as outlined above— read the first section of the psalm, remember what God has done in your life and then pray it; after that, move on to the next section. Another way is to meditate on each verse and then paraphrase it to pray in your own words.

 You might also want to continue the spiritual discipline of solitude. Scripture and solitude complement and strengthen one another. Solitude makes soul space to absorb Scripture, particularly when we devote hours to be alone and quiet before the Word of God. Praying Scripture gives us strength to endure and benefit from solitude.[3]

[1]Richard J. Fairchild, "Sermon and Liturgy for Ordinary 17 - Year C," Sermons and Sermon- Lectionary Resources, http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/c-or17sesu.php (Accessed on Nov 21, 2013.) 
[2] Excerpt from Thomas A Renquist, Topsy-Turvy: Living in the Biblical World: Gospel Sermons for Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third) Cycle C, (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2000), 36. 
[3] Bill Gaultiere, "Bible Reading," Soul Shepherding, http://www.soulshepherding.org/2012/08/bible-reading/ (Accessed Nov 21, 2013.)

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