O God Who Heard, Remembered, Saw and Knew - Evening Prayer 8 March 2020

"During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew” (Exodus 2:23-25).

LORD God, Almighty, All-knowing, All-present: you are the God who heard Israel's groaning under oppression; you are the God who remembered your covenant; you are the God who saw what was happening to your people; you are the God who knew! Look upon these and hear our prayer (…).
  • O God who heard – Hear their prayers and cries to you, hear their groans and the fear in their voice. Hear, O God, the threats, accusations and manipulative verbal assaults! Hear, O God! O Lord, hear our prayer.
  • O God who remembered – Remember the covenant ratified by your Son, Jesus Christ, and how (…) is part of your covenant, as are their children. Remember that they are yours and you have promised them your aid; that you are for them and they have nothing to fear (Psalm 56:9c-10). Remember, O God! O Lord, hear our prayer.
  • O God who saw – See what the justice system, the advocates, the lawyers, and the Law Enforcement Officers are presently blind to. See and expose; see and direct; see and defend! See, O God! O Lord, hear our prayer.
  • O God who knew – Know (…) and this situation and raise up deliverers for them as you raised up Moses. Know and make known their valor, honor, trustworthiness, decency as a parent, and their desire to be a good spouse (…). Know and make known the oppressor's impoverishing, impounding and impeding ploys! Vindicate the one being oppressed. Break this stuck system loose so that the wheels of justice might begin to turn in their favor. Know, O God! O Lord, hear our prayer.

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