For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my enemies And destroy all those who afflict my soul, For I am Your servant. Psalm 143:11,12
If ever any of us have ever cried out in this way for our own souls, how can we not lift up our voices and take up sword and shield on behalf of those who do not have faith or strength enough to call upon God for themselves, for those whose cry is very faint? We can, and that is what we are about these forty days and likely beyond. The year 2018 will be, I hope, a year of deliverance for those we love and care about, friends and acquaintances with a foot stuck in a crevice, sons and daughters lost in this land, this great land, wandering, thirsty, faint, and perhaps not yet aware of the dangers ahead.
Not, of course, that the Lord cannot hear the faintest cry, but there are those who have not been able to lift up their heads. We may not know why, we may not know how to proceed or how they came to be so helpless in such a dark place, but we can help if we will bring ourselves before the Lord on their behalf.
Now, today, for them … Jeremiah 20:11
But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.
Today, I pray for those toward whom my compassions are kindled:
Lord God, you are a mighty warrior! Let their persecutors stumble and not prevail … may they fail and be thoroughly disgraced, while those for whom I pray are lifted up and never put to shame. May those who seek their lives and their integrity be dishonored, but may the cry and the need of my friends, my troubled friends, never be forgotten until You have turned their mourning into dancing, O Lord my God.
Let us pray together, bringing the wounded and forsaken before the Lord Who loves them, Who loves us and trusts us, that we will share His heart and trust His power over darkness.
Manuel Gonzalez, the first rescuer to descend into the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile
October, 2010
by permission, Gobierno de Chile, Wikipedia
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