Solomon tells us that “a happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing” (Proverbs 17:22, AMP ). God undoubtedly has a sense of humor; we need only look at some of the animals He created (it’s hard not to smile at the sight of a hippo, a monkey, or a puppy). Or think of some of the married couples you know: don’t you think God was smiling at the wedding as He looked ahead to the interaction of the wildly different personalities that will be living together?Posts Tagged ‘prayer’
crying out for mercy
This is second in a series on mercy.
Tuesday, I wrote about praying the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner) and how the beginning acknowledges all that Jesus is. I ended with the question, “But what about the mercy part?” and that’s where I’ll pick up today.
I wondered how often mercy showed up in Scripture. It’s there a lot! What caught my attention as I looked at the gospels is that the most frequent occurrence of mercy is in requests:
Lord, have mercy
I never gave much thought to the mercy of God until this past weekend. “Lord, have mercy” has long been an expression of exasperation (as in, “Lord have mercy! What were you thinking?”) rather than a prayer. My first exposure to this was in sixth grade, when we moved to Columbus, Mississippi — my family’s first time in the South. My teacher that year — I can’t remember her name, but I clearly remember her face, her blue hair, and her rather unpleasant disposition — was a good Southern woman, and she used to exclaim, “Laaaw-zay mer-say may!” (translation: Lordy, mercy me!) when she was frustrated. Later, in high school, Sunday school teacher Dave Krebs suggested to us boys that “mercy” was a good word to say instead of a profanity. Not a bad idea, I suppose. The other place that I encountered “mercy” was in games of strength: you extend your arms upward, interlock fingers with the other guy, and try to push him down to his knees, making him cry for mercy.
The upshot of this, particularly using mercy as an exclamation, is that the word was emptied of meaning for me. I knew that it was a theologically important concept, as well as a potentially troubling one, linked as it always was to God’s sovereignty. God said to Moses, “I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,” and I always wondered how He decided. Since I usually ended up scared when I pondered this, I decided not to think about it at all. So “mercy” didn’t enter much into my understanding of God or into my prayers.
prayer: nourishing the life of God in us
I just got Oswald Chambers’ If You Will Ask, and I’m already loving it, one chapter in. According to Chambers, prayer “develops the life of God in us” and “nourishes” that life; in other words, if we don’t pray, we are starving ourselves. That’s a sobering thought!
He goes on to say the life of God in us
is nourished by refusing to worry over anything, for worry means there is something over which we cannot have our own way… Never let anything push you to your wits’ end, because you will get worried, and worry makes you self-interested and disturbs the nourishment of the life of God. Give thanks to God that He is there, no matter what is happening….
He concludes his discussion of worry with this beautiful thought:
The secret of Christian quietness is not indifference, but the knowledge that God is my Father, He loves me, and I shall never think of anything He will forget, and worry becomes an impossibility.
I shall never think of anything He will forget: this is one of those Selah moments. Pause, and calmly think about that!
The chapter ends with a prayer from Chambers’ journal:
O Lord, this day may your beauty and grace and soothing peace be in me and upon me. May no wind or weather or anxiety ever touch Your beauty and Your peace in my life or in this place.
praying for our enemies
Joee Blogs posted photos yesterday of Muslim protesters outside Westminster Cathedral in London. He took the photos not as a casual bystander or journalist but as someone on his way to mass.
The protesters were holding signs with sayings like, “May Allah curse the Pope” and “Jesus is the slave of Allah.” As you might expect, the photos generated a considerable response. Two things stood out to me as I read the post and the comments: 1. Joee took time to pray for the protesters while he was at the cathedral. 2. The level of hatred in the comments was disturbing.
let God bring the change
The next chapter in Murray’s Humility opens with this quote from Thomas à Kempis:
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish yourself to be.
Doesn’t that just stop you in your tracks?
We started our fall small group last night, and we’re doing Emerson Eggerichs’ Love and Respect, a wonderful teaching on marriage. As I prayed yesterday about what to say by way of introduction, three things came to mind, with this quote very much in the mix:
“Rest That Remains”
As I was writing “helping your soul to rest in peace,” I remembered the words of a hymn by Charles Wesley, based on Hebrews 3 and 4; I know it from a recording by worship leader Craig Smith. The lyrics are beautiful and worth meditating on:
Lord I believe in a rest that remains
To all Thy people known
A rest where pure enjoyment reigns
And Thou art loved alone
A rest where all our souls’ desire
Is fixed on the things above
Where doubt and pain and fear expire
Cast out by perfect love…
helping your soul to rest in peace
One of the aspects of The Little Book of Hours that I like best is that the morning and evening prayers end with this:
May the souls of the faithful by the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.
This repetition of “rest in peace” was one of the first things that caught my attention when I started using the prayer book several years ago. Growing up, the only time I heard “rest in peace” was in regard to gravestones, so I wondered why this prayer was a a regular feature. I concluded that while the original intent of the prayer may have been for the “dearly departed,” I was going to speak it as a prayer for myself and my family…
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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