Thoughts for the Day

Give ear to my words, O Lord;
give heed to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil will not sojourn with you.
The boastful will not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful....

Let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
so that those who love your name may exult in you.
For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
you cover them with favour as with a shield.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

In the early 1800's the wife of the Rector of Whitby found she couldn't hear the sermon in St Saviour's Church, and so she encouraged her husband to attach some "hearing trumpets" to the back of the huge three-decker pulpit. She would then attach two tubes from these to her ears. I remember thinking what a great idea. This, and the opening words of Psalm 5, remind me of a silly picture image about our prayers to God. Imagine a very large phone in the sky labelled 'God' attached to millions of small phones all with speech bubbles saying 'Help!"

This wonderful psalm comes at a time when David's enemies are very strong and he fears they will destroy him. Yet despite this he trusts in God, and continues to worship him daily. It's easy to worship God when life is good, but it's difficult when our world appears to be collapsing around us. Many of us don't think about God when life is pleasant. Indeed, we can be oblivious to Him, and it can take an emergency to change this. When we, or a loved one becomes ill; or money is tight and we must choose to 'heat or eat'; or some other crisis occurs, we can be quick to ask God for help.

God will "give ear" to our words and answer our prayer as he thinks best, if we have faith and trust in Him. But it would be good if we could remember to turn to Him when life is good, as well! And I still like to think of the phones, but with some speech bubbles saying "Praise!" or "Thanks!"

Heavenly Father,
we praise You and worship You;
and we thank You for Your love,
Your mercy, and Your generosity.
May we come to You
in confidence and trust,
knowing that You are always there
and are ready to listen to us.
But may we also remember to
involve You in our daily life
on the days when the sun
never seems to stop shining.
Amen.