Praying Through the Psalms

Give Ear to Our Cries, O Lord!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 24, 2019
Posted in: Prayer for families, Prayer for the Nation, Praying Through the Psalms, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

1279px-Rembrandt_-_Joseph_and_Potiphar's_wife

 

 

 

 

A Prayer for Guidance

To the Chief Musician. With flutes. A Psalm of David.

Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my meditation.
 Give heed to the voice of my cry,
My King and my God,
For to You I will pray.  (Psalm 5:1, 2)

 

            I know of not one Christian who can say, “Every time I’ve prayed, every request I’ve made to the Lord, has been answered within twenty-four hours, exactly per my word and request.”

What we pray and ask, the thing that makes our prayers perfect, is the will of God we seek for ourselves and those we love.  His will works, for hearts and souls and families and nations, and sometimes His plans are not immediate:

We think of Joseph’s long ordeal in Egypt, and its generations-saving effect:

 

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20)

 

Is it possible that we have as few miracles of salvation and deliverance as we have Josephs: those willing to trust, to wait, to glorify God in faithfulness no matter their circumstances?  We will persevere, by Your grace, Father, as we pray for our Dear Little Friends.

 

“Give ear to our words today, O Lord!  Hear the voice of our cries for those we love, for those for whom we care deeply.  Some are in prison, Father, as Joseph was.  Remember how he suffered there, and remember those we love!  Some are fatherless, as Joseph was, and some have been misunderstood, misrepresented, and even falsely accused.  Most have been taken captive.  Remember Joseph, Father, as if You could forget, taken down to Egypt in chains and all the sorrows of his heart, and remembering, deliver those for whom we pray.

 

. . . he sent a man before them—
    Joseph, sold as a slave.

They bruised his feet with shackles,
    his neck was put in irons,
 till what he foretold came to pass,
    till the word of the Lord proved him true. (Psalm 105:17-19)

 

 

 

Joseph Rejects Potiphar’s Wife, Rembrandt, 1634,

Wikipedia, by permission

4/16 – We Are Crying Out, as David Did – Psalm 4

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 16, 2019
Posted in: Prayer for the Nation, Praying Through the Psalms, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

Incendie_Notre_Dame_de_Paris.jpg

 

 

When I call out, answer me,
O God who vindicates me!
Though I am hemmed in, you will lead me into a wide, open place.
Have mercy on me and respond to my prayer! (verse 1, NET)

 

What does the Lord think when we are so direct with Him? Not obnoxious, not presumptuous, but child to Father, friend to Friend, brother to Brother, soldier to Commander?

 

Oh Lord God, in all the “how much more” examples Jesus gave us, You keep calling us to trust this relationship we have with You; if we need You, cry out!  If we are exultant, jump for joy!

 

This very moment, Lord, I can think of a place or two in my life and many in the lives of many of my Desperate Little Friends where it would not be strange if I, if we, were to cry out, “Answer me, O God!  You vindicate us … answer, O Lord!  No matter the lies of the enemies, the darts and arrows we need to deflect, the dangers around us, You will lead us up and out, through every tribulation and into wide, open spaces, and oh!  we do need to find them!

 

Bring us out where we can see what we’ve done and left undone!  Bring us out to that wide place where we can forgive every atrocity committed against us, and the little irksome things, too.  You make new, You care, You understand, You so graciously vindicate us.  We are praying for those who burn with fears, regrets, and uncertainties, and who have scorched others with their words and with many failures of love, but we cry out to You for them.  Look upon this friend and that one, so wounded, so scarred.

 

Bring them out to that place where it all makes sense even in confusion, because YOU are the Potter, You are the Husbandman, You are the Shepherd of Your sheep, and You do not forsake us, forget us, or fail us, and we will care with You.

 

Every good and all our good is in You, O Lord, and we pray today for those who cannot quite say that as wholeheartedly as we, and for ourselves, where we are faint or feckless –

 

Have mercy on us and respond to our prayer!

 

 

 

For those who’ve never worshipped anywhere else … and for those too tormented to worship at all, Lord God, be glorified!

Notre Dame Incendie, April 15, 2019

LeLassierPaserA38, Wikipedia, by permission

4/12 – Breaking the Teeth of the Liars – Psalm 3

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 12, 2019
Posted in: Prayer for families, Prayer for the Nation, Praying Through the Psalms, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Schuyler Shepherd, by permission, Serengeti_Lion_Running_saturated

 

Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me!
2 Many are saying of me,
    “God will not deliver him.”

 

“Lord God, had we not one spiritual enemy, not one force for evil mounted against us, we would not have to look far to see those around us, sinking in spiritual trouble.  For them we fight today, and for ourselves as well.  Many have said and will say that You do not deliver … we say, You are our strength, our refuge, our deliverance … ours and theirs for whom we pray!”

 

3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high.

 

            Oh, the lies of the liars, Lord!  They hurt, they wound, but You will break the teeth of the liars, just as You have said.  (Psalm 58:6). Answer us, Lord!  When they lie to us, about our marriages, our children, our nation, it’s powerful until we answer in power.  They speak of failure, separation, futility … but You hear from on high when we pray in faith, in hope, and because of love.

 

4 I call out to the Lord,
    and he answers me from his holy mountain. 

5 I lie down and sleep;
    I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
6 I will not fear though tens of thousands
    assail me on every side.

 

            Indeed, we will sleep in peace tonight, for the destiny of others is beginning to blossom in faith in our hearts, because You are faithful.

 

Oh Lord God, oh Father!  You as much as tuck us in with every word of truth and grace and mercy and promise that You have spoken.  How privileged we are to say to You at break of day and when we sleep …

 

7 Arise, Lord!
    Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
    break the teeth of the wicked.

8 From the Lord comes deliverance.
    May your blessing be on your people.

 

 

4/11/19 – Nations Are PEOPLES – Psalm 2:6-12

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 11, 2019
Posted in: Prayer for families, Prayer for the Nation, Praying Through the Psalms, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

Anti-Corruption_Rally_in_Saint_Petersburg_(2017-06-12)_54.jpg

 

 

 

 

6 For the Lord declares, “I have placed my chosen king on the throne
    in Jerusalem, on my holy mountain.”

7 The king proclaims the Lord’s decree:
“The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son.
    Today I have become your Father.

  

Your Son is risen, risen with healing in His wings, and not for the diseased, only.  Even for souls and families and nations.  This we proclaim, Father, and on behalf of those who cannot yet speak for themselves.        


8 Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,
    the whole earth as your possession.
9 You will break them with an iron rod
    and smash them like clay pots.’”

 

There is a King upon a throne (Colossians 3:1,2) The Father and the Son reign on high, and in us.  The Son asks for the nations, and we ask with Him.  I especially want the United States.  And Germany. Also Poland.  And Russia.   Others want China and the Philippines and Ireland.   We want them for our inheritance, as they are the Lord’s and we are His.

 

10 Now then, you kings, act wisely!
    Be warned, you rulers of the earth!
11 Serve the Lord with reverent fear,
    and rejoice with trembling.
 

 

Always remembering … the nations are but delineators … NATIONS are people groups, men and women, marriages, families, children, and Lord God, we love the people that have been too long deceived wherever the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been prevented or perverted, either one.  Send Your Word, heal them, deliver them from their destructions!  (Psalm 107:20)

 

 

12 Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry,
    and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities—
for his anger flares up in an instant.
    But what joy for all who take refuge in him!

 

 

We speak of those, we think of those, who need to submit to truth … all around us we see and we know those who have spurned Your truth, but we will go before them in this truth, Father: we are called to care, to care deeply, to believe and to intercede in faith, in hope, with enduring love, until all those we love have found their true refuge.  Father!  We say “all” as Jesus said, “all.”  The saving and keeping are up to You, but we keep them in our hearts and in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son.  Amen.

an Anti-Corruption Rally in St. Petersburg … June2017

by permission, Wikipedia

Alexei Kouprianov

Psalm 2:1-5 … We Pray, While Nations Rage (Day Three)

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 10, 2019
Posted in: Prayer for families, Prayer for the Nation, Praying Through the Psalms, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

1280px-Spanish_War_Children_(restored)

1 Why are the nations so angry?
    Why do they waste their time with futile plans?

  

We know, Lord God, that unless we are “in Christ,” we are “the nations,” the sands that you measure on scales as dust.  In Him, we belong to another realm, with a different hope. Even so, if we aren’t careful, we too become enraged, boiling over, fit to be tied when others won’t take heed. Oh help us, Father, to gain an eternal perspective!  Help those we love not to waste their time or their strength with futile plans, mental gyrations that lead nowhere!   Help us to do the one thing that can make a difference; we will care deeply when those we love do and perpetrate and defend the things we abhor.  We do care, Father!

 

2 The kings of the earth prepare for battle;
    the rulers plot together
against the Lord
    and against his anointed one.

 

Battles and skirmishes everywhere, in politics, at the lunch counter in diners.  Kings and cashiers, preparing for battle against one another, and they don’t know, they do not see that they are shaking their fists at You.  There is a battle for righteousness and truth, and we fight for those who think a pie in the face … or a rocket launch … is effective warfare when in truth, the Son of Man is risen with healing in His wings.

 

3 “Let us break their chains,” they cry,
    “and free ourselves from slavery to God.”

 

 

Your anointed one does bind us … to His heart.  You have bound us with cords of love, and that’s the only “slavery” we want for anyone.  We know what it is to be slaves to truth, where we cannot lie for convenience or power, where we must tell ourselves the truth at any cost, and such slavery we want for all we know.

 

 

4 But the one who rules in heaven laughs.
    The Lord scoffs at them.
5 Then in anger he rebukes them,
    terrifying them with his fierce fury.

 

We know this about You, You have a warrior name, but You are a Man of Peace, Lord Jesus.  The Prince of Peace.  “My peace I leave with You …” … almost Your last words to us.  When the battle is enjoined, You prevail, but against whom do You scoff?  Soldiers? Warriors?  Generals?  First, most assuredly, You scoff at those who lie to us, telling us and others that frenzy and panic and fury will win the day.  You will rebuke evil, and You do so through our prayers and peace.

 

There is a fierce fury, a terrifying, but forgive us when we fail to identify our real enemies, those who plot evil for the souls of men.  You confound those who set souls and nations ablaze through fear and hubris.  Indeed, satan will be crushed beneath our feet (Romans 16:20) if we will walk in the truth, praying for those we love.

 

 

Wikipedia, Public Domain

The photograph shows children preparing for evacuation from Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, some giving the Republican salute. It is donated to Wikipedia Commons by the estate of Olga Brocca Smith, and is dedicated to all innocent victims of war.

Day Two – Psalm One – MAKE a Difference, Lord!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on April 9, 2019
Posted in: Prayer for families, Prayer for the Nation, Praying Through the Psalms, spiritual warfare, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Marasalvatrucha13arrest

 

 “Happy are those who don’t listen to the wicked,
    who don’t go where sinners go,
    who don’t do what evil people do.

 

Lord God!  To the degree that we are happy in the righteousness You have brought into our lives … the righteousness that You are to us! … to that degree we rejoice and we pray for those we love who haven’t found it yet!


2 They love the Lord’s teachings,
    and they think about those teachings day and night.”

 

We know that we do not pay heed to Your Word or meditate on it as we ought, never as fully as we could wish, but what we know and what we believe has changed us and guides us.  We live by Your Word, and we want that for those we love.

 

 

3 “They are strong, like a tree planted by a river.
    The tree produces fruit in season,
    and its leaves don’t die.
Everything they do will succeed.

 

 

You have become our strength, and too often have we kept all that security for ourselves … we want strength and blessing and truth for those we love, nobody lacking!  None lacking, Lord, the way Jesus cared for those entrusted to Him.  (John 17:12). We are praying for those outside, alienated, hardened, even as some of us once were.

 

 

4 But wicked people are not like that.
    They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

 

Too long have we pigeon-holed the weak, the deficient, the tormented, and too long have we filed them away with their wicked deeds and unbelief, those who are wounded, confused, frightened, lost … but not lost from our compassion and certainly not from Yours. Too long have we held ourselves aloof because they were bad, as sometimes they were, nursing our own wounds, sometimes praying but not quite believing.  Forgive us, Father.

 


5 So the wicked will not escape God’s punishment.
    Sinners will not worship with God’s people.
6 This is because the Lord takes care of his people,
    but the wicked will be destroyed.

 

There are wicked ones in the world, spiritually wicked entities and those sold out to them, but if we can find a chink of empathy in our hearts for those taken captive, we know it comes from You, and so we pray.  We hold on! Come and make them, with us, to know You, love Your Word, and walk in Your ways.  Make them?  You are the Gentleman we say You are, but we wouldn’t be here today if You hadn’t MADE a change on our behalf.  You make us Your own … do that for our Desperate Little Friends, Lord, the way that only You can do!