SCRIPTURE: For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. Psalm 125:3 ESV
National Day of Prayer, find an event.
Here’s their list of things you can focus on as you pray in case you like to use prompts: Ways to Pray. Never has there been a time in my own lifetime where our country has been in such danger and turmoil. Please don’t yawn and turn away, pray!
THOUGHT: Psalm 125 is a five-verse song of assents, so called because it was sung as ancient Israelites climbed the rugged mountains on their way up to Jerusalem for the feasts – Nazareth, for example is 1000-1500 feet lower, and Jericho, 3700 feet, although only 17 miles from Jerusalem! God used the strenuous journey to remind an entire nation of their story of deliverance and dependence using the 14 Psalms from 120-134. Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed (Deuteronomy 16:16).
These songs are like muscle memory to a vocalist or gymnast – they are living liturgies, practiced over and over to a set of steps, often hard steps. Imagine as you climb upward, whether 8 or 82, you sing the same song at perhaps the same place on the mountain three times each year. It becomes your friend, an old companion. It gets into your flexing and stretching and the words seep into your fear of heights and anxiety about wild animals or wild thieves or the wild governments waiting to war with your people.
As these words cross your lips, for the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong, you remember the God who has promised that, although trouble will come, it is not destined to last, or to take down your faith with it. You climb higher, remembering God will give you strength for the day, strength of an eagle as you wait upon him and trust him for deliverance from whatever scepter of wickedness rests on you at the moment. And you’re not empty-handed. You carry evidence of God’s goodness in the past.
So you climb, and you sing, surrounded by others who encourage your faith, and suddenly the journey seems less like work and more like a taste of righteous life.
PRAYER: Oh God, you are our help and climbing companion. Thank you for others on the journey upward too. We climb and sing, and remember all the ways you have saved in the past as encouragement to face the next mountain.
Dear Reader,
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
Check out Walking When You’d Rather Fly, and learn more about the book and Amy’s other ministries. You will also find her devotional work at Words of Hope.
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