Solomon’s Prayer

Posted on by korgrocker

“Give your love of justice to the king, O God, 
and righteousness to the king’s son. 
Help him judge your people in the right way; 
     let the poor always be treated fairly. 
May the mountains yield prosperity for all, 
     and may the hills be fruitful. 
Help him to defend the poor, 
     to rescue the children of the needy, 
     and to crush their oppressors.”
Psalms‬ ‭72:1-4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Psalm 72 was written by Solomon, David’s second son from his marriage with Bathsheba. This Psalm is a prayer with three interwoven themes, instructions to the king, prosperity for all, and justice and provision for the poor. But do these themes have any relevance for Western societies today? 

Regarding instructions for the king we can overlay them onto our democratic system and its political leaders. The Psalmist lists love of justice, righteousness, treating people fairly and judging in the right way as being qualities that leaders should adhere to. So when the opportunity comes to vote for our leaders, we should look for these qualities in the candidates, praying for God to help us in the selection process. And it reminds us that we should pray for our political leaders, that they will faithfully follow God’s ways.

One word that repeatedly crops up in the Psalm is “May”. It’s a word that is full of a prayerful aspiration for something good to happen. An expression of hope. A yearning for better times. Verse 3 sets out a prayer for prosperity, with a picture of the mountains and hills providing a fruitful source. Prosperity for everyone, not just the favoured few. This is a prayer for today as well. Many parts of our world today are experiencing poverty. Famines and diseases are rife. Wars destroy what little some people have. And we have a terrible imbalance between the rich and the poor nations. So we must pray for all people, and provide from our resources what we can. But there is a wider, more prevalent, poverty. Poverty of spirit is a universal problem, affecting all nations, whether rich or poor. Jesus highlighted the “poor in spirit” in the first of the Beatitudes. Such people realise their need for God, and can approach Him with open hands to receive His riches, the prosperity found in His Kingdom. 

But in this Psalm, Solomon writes about how the leader should protect the poor in his nation. It is interesting that Solomon didn’t pray for the poor to become rich and prosperous. He accepted that in spite of the prosperity of the nation, there were still poor, needy and oppressed people, and he prayed for the leader to do what was necessary to look after them. Though Western societies are generally rich and prosperous, we still have poor people who are needy and oppressed. Jesus said in John 12:8, “You will always have the poor among you…”. And that is certainly today’s experience. The solution has evaded every generation since Solomon. But as God’s people, we must pray and help those in need in our communities and families.

There is perhaps a prophetic hint of the Messiah’s reign to come in this Psalm, with its reference to the “ends of the earth” in verse 8. That is when we will see the reality of the prayers of this Psalm fulfilled.

Paranoia?

Posted on by korgrocker

Those who hate me without reason
outnumber the hairs of my head;
many are my enemies without cause,
those who seek to destroy me.
I am forced to restore
what I did not steal.

But I pray to you, Lord,
in the time of your favour.
in your great love, O God,
answer me with your sure salvation.
Rescue me from the mire,
do not let me sink;
deliver me from those who hate me,
from the deep waters.

Psalm 69:4,13-14 NIVUK

Is David being paranoid here? Apparently, the average number of hairs on a person’s head is about 100,000. So did this many people really hate David? Were his thoughts being driven by his feelings of persecution and a lack of justice, or was he really in a very difficult place? Whatever the answer would be to this question, David always ending up being reminded of God and His love, salvation and deliverance. And he prayed. David was doing what we all do from time to time. Who has never wondered what other people are thinking about us? Who has never had thoughts that the whispering and quick glances in our direction are gossip about us? David was setting out his feelings, graphically describing what was going on inside of him. And the expression of the negatives were followed through by his arrival on God’s door step. Where he prayed and received the assurance that he was seeking. And in the process he was setting us an example to follow when we too feel a bit paranoid. 

Answered Prayer

Posted on by korgrocker

You who answer prayer,
to you all people will come.
When we were overwhelmed by sins,
you forgave our transgressions.
Psalm 65:2-3 NIV

Another Davidic Psalm. He was certainly a prolific Psalmist, but so much of his writings bubble up out of a heart firmly fixed and grounded in his Father God. In verse 2 of this Psalm, David drops in the unequivocal statement that God answers prayer. In Matthew 21:22, Jesus said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer“. There’s the story of a woman living in the coal belt in Wales, who got so fed up with a slag heap located behind her house that she took the words of Jesus at face value and prayed one night for God to remove the mountain. The next morning it was still there. Her response was, “I didn’t think prayer would work anyway”. An example of unbelieving prayer? When Jesus spoke about asking for something in prayer, there is implied within the request the assurance that what is being asked for is in accordance with God’s will. There is also the implied requirement for having faith that God is who He says He is, and that He will grant the request. Sometimes we try and pray beyond our faith. For example if I pray for revival to break out in my nation, is that within the faith that I have? Perhaps I need to start with praying for my next door neighbour, developing my faith muscles in the process. Both belief and faith required a living, breathing relationship with our Heavenly Father. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you…”. The word ask in this context means to keep on asking, being persistent in prayer. 

But after all this, we have to accept that our believing, faith-filled, persistent prayer requests may not be answered in the way, or with the result, we hoped for. These are the times when we need to trust God, because only He knows what is best for us. However, there is one prayer that God always answers with a resounding “Yes”. That is the prayer for forgiveness for all our sins. In 1 John 1:9, the Apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” We need never be overwhelmed by our sins again. We can live a life free of guilt and sin. Thank You Lord!

How Long?

Posted on by korgrocker

How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me? 
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 13:1-2 NIVUK

This is the “How long” Psalm. Just a few verses but profound in its message. “How long” appears four times in the first two verses, so it must have been a phrase significant in David’s mind when he wrote this Psalm. In the first verse he questions God’s silence and accuses Him of forgetting him. In the second he turns inward and asks the same question of his soul. He must have been an impatient and demanding man at times! 

We too get caught up in “How long” situations. How long will I have to put up with this illness? How long will I have to work at this job? How long will I …. (fill in your own problem). In Western society we are very much wired into expectations that we want delivered instantly. Instant coffee. Turn on a tap and water comes out instantly. Even though, rationally, we know that “instant” is not always possible, it doesn’t stop the expectations of immediacy from rolling in, nagging us with their strident demands. Some want to lose weight. Or learn a foreign language. Or play a musical instrument. Or get a University degree. Instantly! Right now! We want to download a film from the internet instantly and pursue the fastest broadband solution to get as close to instant as we can. We want an electric car (when we can afford to buy one!) to charge up – yes, you’ve guessed it – instantly. The opportunities for the demands of the “How long” generation are endless. Frustration builds and dissatisfaction permeates our minds and corrupts our very souls when “instant” cannot be delivered.

David wasn’t caught up with ancient Jewish gadgets though. Or the faucets in the palace plumbing. Rather, he was in a hard place, once again, because of his enemies. And obviously he was getting impatient with God for not dealing with them. Note that he wasn’t saying that the issue was too hard for God to sort out. He was instead trying to twist God’s arm into helping him out of his predicament sooner rather than later, as we can see in his demanding prayer in verse 3. 

The worldly spirit of urgency also has a pervasive influence on our Christian lives. We want an immediate answer to prayer. We want to see church growth straight away, by Sunday, or perhaps the next, God, if you can’t organise it earlier. But we worship a God whose timing in everything is totally spot on. Never too late. Never too early. 

Many years ago my daughter was hospitalised with a serious, and at the time possibly terminal, illness. The prognosis was grim. And around the world good Christian people prayed for her. A well known itinerant preacher with a proven healing ministry prayed at her bedside. The church Elders anointed her with oil. The family held a daily vigil, each day and most of each night. I personally rattled Heaven’s gates asking God to bring about a breakthrough. But one day halfway through her four months in hospital, I was summoned from my office in Glasgow to her bedside in Edinburgh, the medics fearing the worst. And half way along the M8 motorway I was crying out to God, yes – you’ve guessed it, “How long” God? And amazingly I heard this voice from the back seat say, “Trust Me”. God in His mercy heard my anguish and gave me something that has stayed with me ever since. A reminder that He is in control of all situations and His timing will be perfect. There were further crises in her remaining hospital stay, but we were eventually allowed to bring her home to commence a long, but successful, convalescence. God healed her, not instantly as we would have liked, but nevertheless He healed her. And those two words, “Trust Me” turned me from being a “Believer” into being a “Knower”. 

David finished his Psalm with a declaration of his trust in God’s love, in faith rejoicing in the coming rescue, proclaiming the goodness of God. We don’t know how long David had to wait for God to sort out his enemies. But perhaps, as David lifted his thoughts into Heavenly places, the importance of his problems dimmed, replaced by the comforting arms of his Lord and God, and that still small whisper, “Trust Me”

I’m a Tree

Posted on by korgrocker

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:1-3 NIVUK

Have you ever attended or watched a military parade, particularly of those nations who favour the “goose-step” mode of marching? Hand picked men and women march flawlessly, totally synchronised in their steps. Their polished boots, identical uniforms, marchers all in line, make an impressive spectacle. To someone like me, never good at keeping in step with anything, such a sight I can only watch in amazement. But the Psalmist, right at the start of the first Psalm of the Book of Psalms, straight away declares a counter-cultural way of life. One in which personal blessings can be found only by avoiding the temptation to march in step with the society around us. You see, most of the Western world system in this age is anti-God. Our society and culture is becoming increasingly secular and adopting the Psalmist’s description of being “sinners and mockers”, and keeping in step with such a way of life, doing the same things, thinking the same thoughts, neglecting God and His ways, leads to destruction, as the Psalmist writes in the last verse of this Psalm.

The Psalmist encourages us spend our time in God’s presence, reading His Scriptures, hearing His voice, aligning our thoughts to His thoughts, whenever we have the opportunity. And by doing so we will be “blessed”. God’s blessings are priceless, and they lead to a prosperous and healthy life. The psalmist uses the analogy of the blessed person being like a tree planted next to a stream of water. In his society, desert regions and parched land with stunted tree growth would have been common. But the fortunate tree planted next to a stream never failed to provide all that a tree should – imagine the fruit in season – possibly figs or something similar. The blessed person also produces fruit in the seasons that God has for him or her. Fruit appropriate for God’s Kingdom.

What is this fruit? In the early days of the Charismatic Renewal I once heard a message in a Christian Conference from an international speaker warning against the dangers of being caught up in the excitement of what God was doing in His church, but failing to produce the fruit of a renewed life in God. What is this fruit? What is the spiritual equivalent of a fat, juicy fig? We read about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” But there is also the fruit of fulfilling Jesus’ command in Matthew 28, of making disciples. So we can see that today’s equivalent of meditating on the Law of the Lord will involve personal renewal, a personal orientation towards the Kingdom of God in a way of life appropriate to being a spiritual tree next to His streams of living water.

This year the Elim Movement in the UK is encouraging people and congregations to do a spiritual reset, where they evaluate their lives to see if they are growing fruit or just a few leaves. But we don’t have to be an Elim member to re-evaluate our spiritual lives, checking out how we measure up against God’s demands. In my morning prayer walk today I observed a dead tree, no longer producing fruit as it decayed to join the detritus on the forest floor, helping fungi to grow as it did so. Around it is a thicket of saplings, growing tall and strong. And I said to God in my prayers that I don’t want to be a dead tree amongst such evidence of God’s grace.

Lord, Please help me always to have my roots deeply embedded in the life-giving streams of Your Spirit, this day and forever. Amen.