Merciful God - 27 May 2018



Moses once announced, “For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them” (Deuteronomy 4.31); and Paul once prayed, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1.3). We rejoice that you are merciful and a God of mercies and comfort!

Be merciful to your people on every continent, counting this congregation, Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church; Alameda Baptist; Berry Road Baptist; Bethel Baptist; and Beverly Hills Baptist church. Be merciful toward our brothers and sisters facing difficult times in difficult places like Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Sudan, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Be merciful and grant us your gracious presence and strength.

Be merciful to the Presbyterian Church in America. Govern and guide us, our deliberations, decisions and directions as we approach General Assembly.

Be merciful to our friends in the United Methodist Church as they prepare for their General Conference, and the potential show down. Exonerate what is true and right, and change the hearts and perspectives of those who are misguided and wrongheaded.

Be merciful toward those who have recently graduated from High School and College. May their days ahead be full of joy, satisfaction, and peace. And may their days ahead be full of you!

Be merciful to the peoples of all nations, including these United States of America, North and South Korea, Norway, Oman, and Pakistan. Each nation has unique needs, suffers from specific lacks, fears distinct threats, and longs for particular successes. Govern the nations toward justice, rightness, and morality. Supply them with the ways and means to flourish. And bring them to a place of peace.

Be merciful to those who are displaced, uprooted, or run-off and run-out because of famine, war, or poverty.

Be merciful toward those who are tackling emotional troubles, mental illnesses, disorders, depression, and PTSD. And be merciful to their families, caregivers and loved ones who feel inept and unsettled.

Be merciful to our families, friends, neighbors and co-workers who are sick, ailing, recovering, or maintaining.

Be merciful to those who are dis-spirited, dejected, despondent, fearful, anxious, worried, weak, or heavy burdened.

Be merciful to those who are lost or have strayed.

Be merciful to the families and friends who have lost moms, dads, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and close friends in combat, and still mourn their loss – like our neighbors across the street who lost their son in Iraq in 2005. We are very thankful that through the decades many have enlisted or been commissioned who have sought to serve in protecting our nation; and we remember before you the many who bravely served at the cost of their lives. May their deaths never be in vain! 

Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy! Amen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more