A Prayer for the One Grieving a Parent

Listen to me pray this with you.

O God,

Father of the fatherless,

As lovingly mindful of each son and daughter as our own nursing mothers:

Enfold Your bereft children in Your own ineffable, unfailing love;

Console Your desolate chicks with Your sheltering wing;

Guide Your lost sheep with generous wisdom;

Carry the wounded and weary lambs in Your arms;

Abundantly provide daily bread for Your little ones;

Defend your cubs with loyal strength;

Apprehend the wanderers and bring them home to Yourself;

Nurture, cultivate, and celebrate every green sprout of virtue, worship, obedience, and calling;

Sing Your delight as our lullaby;

Establish broken hearts in the sustaining hope of restoration,

Until our Homegoing or our Lord's return.

Amen.

A Prayer for Hospice Care

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Father of mercies, Comfort of the afflicted,

Walk with us through this dark valley

As we walk our loved one home to You.

Strengthen us to bear up under the dual weights of caregiving and grief.

Receive the service we render her 

As an oblation poured out at the feet of Jesus.

Let Your compassion flow through us

In care that honors her dignity as Your child,

Made in Your image.

Make us know Your presence in our most secret hearts.

Catch our tears in Your bottle,

As we grieve what we have lost and are losing

And we anticipate the loss to come.

Give us Your Spirit of gentleness with each other

Despite nerves frayed by sorrow and fatigue.

Bless the helpers You have sent us for their kindness and care.

Let Your presence and peace settle upon our loved one too, Lord.

Grant her a painless transition to Your presence

When the tally of her days is complete.

Thank You for the hope of the resurrection

And the life of the world to come.

Mercifully hear our prayer through the name of the risen Christ our Savior.

Amen.

A Prayer for Hard Medical Anniversaries

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A Prayer for Hard Medical Anniversaries

 

God of Hope, God of all comfort, God of healing:

This day marks a sorrowful anniversary—

So many years since the illness that continues to change my life,

Since the cancer diagnosis,

Since the accident,

Since the medical label that transformed every aspect of my days.

It is a death without a grave,

Grief without a funeral

Or other rights of communal mourning and lament.

 

You alone truly understand the depth of my heartache

And the distinct sorrow of those who love me and share my burden,

Weighted by it alongside but outside me.

 

I grieve the old me that may never return,

The holistic, multifaceted cost of this illness, this disability,

The choices my body makes for me,

The freedoms and dreams and hope stripped away,

The damage to cherished relationships,

The missed community celebrations, the exclusions, the lost opportunities,

The time redirected to medical tasks,

The increased energy required for the most basic personal tasks.

 

I grieve the invisible, unspoken milestones

like the last time I was healthy in my dreams,

The last time I went to church or a concert or a wedding or a graduation,

The last time I ran or hiked or danced

Or worked or cleaned or cooked

Or spent a day making music or curled up in a bookshop chair,

The last time I could take a shower without careful planning and pacing.

 

I grieve the hurtful words denying or blaming me for my weakness,

The realization that much of society regards me as both "less than" and "too much,"

The shame and gaslighting.

 

Come alongside me today, Abba Father,

Suffering Savior,

Counselor, Comforter, Advocate.

Comfort the sadness;

Make Your loving presence known;

Guide and provide in medical care;

Cure this affliction if You will;

Heal my heart, even if my body never recovers in the land of the living.

Thank You for Your promises,

Your presence,

Your intimate companionship even when I am most alone.

 

Thank You for knowing, loving, and holding me in my brokenness,

Though all others forsake me.

 

Thank You for what You have disclosed of Yourself through my desperate dependence,

For Your strength in my weakness,

For the sufficiency of Your grace in my thorn.

 

Thank You for the precious gifts of kind words and practical help,

For the foul-weather friends who have stood fast at my side and wept with me,

For the companions in the same medical storm

And our fellowship in these sufferings.

 

Thank You for the hope that this same trial is actively producing for me

An exceeding, eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,

that it is not wasted but generative.

 

Thank You for Your love which conquers, redeems, and transforms all,

Even this,

Into glorious good.

 

Thank You for using this to make me more like my Savior.

 

Thank You that nothing disables me from knowing You—

Which is true and eternal life—

Or from knowing Christ in the power of His resurrection

And the fellowship of His sufferings.

 

Thank You for the hope of glory,

For the whole, glorious, redeemed body You are preparing for me

in the day of resurrection,

For the hope of no more death, no more alienation, no more tears,

For the hope of all these locust-eaten years to be restored.

 

Thank You for the everlasting promise You will be with me now,

In the pain and weakness and difficulty,

In the loneliness,

That You will hold my hand,

That underneath are the everlasting arms,

That I am loved with an everlasting love.

 

But today, Lord, I grieve.

I hurt. I lament.

The brokenness overwhelms.

I want enduring hope, but even that must be Your gift.

I believe; help my unbelief,

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

 

A Prayer When You Don’t Know What to Pray

 

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“Lord,

I know not what I ought to ask of Thee;

Thou only knowest what I need:

Thou lovest me better than I know how to love myself.

O Father! Give to Thy child that which he himself knows not how to ask.

I dare not ask for crosses or consolations,

I simply present myself before Thee,

I open my heart to Thee.

Behold my needs which I know not myself;

See and do according to Thy tender mercy.

Smite or heal; depress me or raise me up;

I adore all Thy purposes without knowing them;

I am silent; I offer myself in sacrifice;

I yield myself to Thee;

I would have no other desire than to accomplish Thy will.

Teach me to pray. 

Pray Thyself in me.

Amen.”

~François de la Mothe Fénelon (1651-1715)

Lenten Valentine Prayer

O Lord, fountain of ineffable and inexhaustible lovingkindness,

Untiring and undeterred Lover of our souls,

We confess that we have squandered our strength, our moments, and our very selves,

Wearying souls and bodies in pursuit of what is not love and does not satisfy.

Our adulterous hearts were made to love and be loved by You, our heavenly Bridegroom,

Whose love alone does not fade or fail, falter or break faith.

Rescue us from our idols;

Prune away our worthless, barren loves;

Open more of our hearts to yourself, whose love is life;

Replace our stony sin-stained hearts with new hearts, tender towards you;

So awaken our souls to your love, that we cannot but wholly cleave to you;

Captivate our every affection with your loveliness;

Console the desolate hearts with your mercies;

Embrace the lonely hearts with your delight;

Soothe the fearful hearts with your peace;

Heal the broken hearts with your compassion;

Seek out the wandering hearts with the wooing of your Spirit.

O Lord, who loved us to and through the cross,

Expand and expurgate our hearts to better love You who loved us first,

Without whom we would not know love at all.

In the name of the fairest and loveliest Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.

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Unimprisoned God

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Ruby-crowned kinglet on a snowy day

O Omnipresent God,

Unhindered by any door, deadbolt, or lock:

We who worship alone today

Within the walls of our homes or rooms or curtained hospital beds or unsheltered in the open air

Offer you our solitude as sacrifice of praise,

In gratitude for the gritty faith of the many in the great cloud of witnesses

Who themselves worshipped in prisons of stones or caves or holes in the ground,

In exile and in illness;

In solidarity with many today imprisoned by poor health or sin's consequences or the unjust decisions of the powerful— 

Some deprived of all contact with the world outside—

Companion us in all our lonely lamentations; 

Shine Your light into our darkness to show the gold gleam of the most holy place of Your presence; 

Unite us in the spiritual communion of the saints, one body in Christ beyond time or space;

Remind each one that no child of Yours is ever truly alone,

for you are with us always in love and grace

For the glory of Your holy name.

Amen.

Ruler of Wind and Waves

Amaryllis bud in front of bokeh Christmas lights

Click here to listen to me pray this over you.

Eternal, omnipotent God, 

Ruler of wind and waves,

Who raised a storm against your wayward prophet

And spoke hush to the waves swamping the disciples' boat,

Who sent a great fish to swallow the one and called many fish into the nets of the others:

Speak peace to the troubled hearts of Your children;

Where we are wayward, use the storms to drive us back to You;

Where we are worried (and, Lord, we are worried), speak Your peace that passes understanding into our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies;

Only You are strong enough to carry all the weight of all our worries;

Only You are loving enough to want to.

Provide everything needed, from discipline to daily bread;

Have mercy on our frailties and sins;

Heal our sorrows and sicknesses;

Grant us rest in the Almighty Love come down at Christmas and abiding always,

in Jesus' name, Amen.

A Prayer for the Threshold of the Year

Listen to me pray this over you.

Eternal God,

Thank you for the blessings Your hand  has provided us this year.

We bring you the challenges You have carried us through,

The wounds and disappointments we need You to heal,

The ones that may never heal this side of Heaven,

The lessons You’ve taught us,

The lessons we’ve still failed to learn,

The accomplishments You have worked for us.

All of them we offer You as material for sacrifice.

In all these things Your hand has been working, whether we knew it or not.

In all these things Your love has been working, whether we knew it or not.

You are the alpha and omega,

Beginning and end,

Author and finisher of our faith.

You have carried us through all this year,

And you already await us in the new one.

You have never forsaken us and will not forsake us now.

Grant us grace and strength for today

And tomorrow

And all the tomorrows remaining to us until we see Your face in death or the soon return of Christ.

May Your love be our rest,

Your power our security,

Your communion our hope.

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Amen.

31 December 2023

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A Christmas prayer for the sick

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O God our healer,

Who sweetened Mara's bitter waters with wood:

Sweeten the bitterness and loneliness of illness with the cross of Christ;

Console the ill with the fellowship of His sufferings and the Holy Spirit's comfort;

Show forth the sufficiency of Your grace and fullness of Your power;

Remind Your people to love, encourage, and pray for them;

Heal the grief of missing out, especially on days of celebration;

Forgive those who have added sorrow by their words and actions, intentional and accidental;

Transform sickrooms and hospital beds into sanctuaries through Your presence;

That the sick and their families may endure these afflictions as seeing You who are invisible,

And rest in Your promises that these sufferings are, even now, working for them an overwhelming, eternal, incomparable weight of glory;

In the name of Jesus,

the Man of sorrows who bore our sickness and pain as well as our sin,

Amen.

A Christmas Prayer for the Broken Hearts

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Most merciful Father,

who draws near to the brokenhearted

and bandages their wounds:

Who but You can heal a broken heart?

Comfort Your bruised and battered children;

Minister to their wounds 

with the intimate companionship of Emmanuel,

God with us,

so that they might discover treasures

in the darkness of their heartache

which they could not have seen

in the sunshine of happier days.

Light of light, our Rescuer and Healer,

in You we ask this.

Amen.

Psalm 27 and the Loneliness of Three in the Morning

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Hear my voice when I call, Lord;
be merciful to me and answer me.
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
Your face, Lord, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
God my Savior.
Though my father and mother forsake me,
the Lord will receive me.

Psalm 27:7-10 NIV

 

Loneliness—

Since Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it has haunted humanity. That sin separated us from God, each other, and even in a sense from ourselves. Loneliness so stalks our lives that it can find us in a crowd or at home alone. It can find us in the arms of our best beloved and cradling our firstborn children. It finds the single and the married. It finds us at work and at leisure. It finds us in youth and old age. It is a universal form of suffering. 

Bereavement is lonely; really any sort of emotional or physical pain is.

Chronic illness is lonely: no other person truly knows the experience of it, and it frequently removes us from our family and friends. Especially now, when opportunities for online discipleship, fellowship, worship, work, and study are being scaled back or discontinued, many medically vulnerable people are feeling left behind and lonely. Alienated. Exiles. Chronic and prolonged illness even alienates us from ourselves in the way it severs us from the “before” self so different from the one in the mirror and lying in the bed. There is a particular loneliness for the me I used to be, the me I still am sometimes in my dreams; it is a wistful ache, but the only way out of it is to forget the “before” self altogether. That would be poor comfort indeed.

In addition, loneliness often marks vocational ministry and missions. The leadership position can pose challenges to vulnerable, close relationships with the very people and church being cared for. Sometimes fellowship is found with other leaders or lay Christians outside the church congregation; sometimes the leader is physically present and immersed in the ministry community but emotionally distant for self-protection.

Those are only a few examples; really, loneliness is an equal-opportunity affliction. It can strike any sort of person at any time of life and any hour of the day. Loneliness can find us at high noon or at five on Friday afternoon, but I suggest that three in the morning is the loneliest hour of the day.

 

The Setting

This is the fourth essay in our series reflecting on Psalm 27. In this Psalm, God through David has given us a prayer-song for when we are afraid of the dark: whatever kind of dark, literal darkness or emotional and spiritual darkness. David seeks shelter in God’s personal presence with confidence borne out of His past rescues, and so can we.

In the first post, we consider the themes and structure of the prayer as a whole. In the second post, we reflect on the first section of three verses. In it David describes his experience of God’s saving defense. In the third post we consider the second section (vv. 4-6), in which David expresses his expectant desire for God’s sheltering presence, his “one thing”: to dwell with and behold his God.

Since communion with God was David’s “one thing,” the loss of fellowship with Him is David’s greatest fear, even more than family tragedy or military defeat. In the third section we’re examining today (7-10), David takes his fear (or experience) of rejection to the Lord and pleads for God’s continued presence. The very deepest sort of loneliness, I believe, is our existential loneliness for the God who made and sustains us. A deep cavern of loneliness in our inmost being is so shaped that only the Triune God can fill it. 

 

The Search

Here the psalm takes a turn from talking about God (third person, for the English majors out there) to talking to God directly (second person); he changes from “he” language to “you” language. We might also notice that pleading, vulnerable prayer requests pour out in a rush of words and intense emotion:

•       Hear me
•       Be merciful to me
•       Answer me
•       Don’t hide Your face from me
•       Don’t push me away
•       Don’t reject me
•       Don’t forsake me

 Psychologist and author Dr. Curt Thompson has said in his books and podcasts that “we are all born looking for someone looking for us” and that there is a universal human need to be “seen, soothed, safe, and secure.” Those are the desires and needs I see David taking to God in these verses. “I’m seeking Your face, Lord; will You meet my gaze? Are you looking back at me? Please don’t turn away.” David looks back at God’s past help and begs Him not to reject him now. The tone struck by the urgent pleas brings to my mind a child clinging to a beloved parent’s leg in separation anxiety, or a wife begging her husband to stay (or vice versa). David is searching for God, and his greatest fear seems to be that God will not let Himself be found in the moment of deepest need.

 In Scripture, the face of God often symbolizes the favor of God. In the battles and attacks David is suffering while writing this Psalm (see the earlier verses and posts), what he mosts desires is God’s favor, represented in God’s face turned toward him and not hidden from him.

 

The Solace

After pouring all this out before the Lord, David remembers. He remembers God’s faithful help and says, to God and himself, that—even if the people most bound by love and duty to care for him should reject and abandon him—the Lord will always receive him.

We all fail the people we love most. Whether through intentional sin, personality and value differences, or simply the limitations of being human, we all fall short of satisfying our closest dear ones’ innermost needs. Finite humanity cannot fill a God-shaped void. David, the author of this Psalm, experienced murderous rage from his king and mentor, betrayal by servants and sons, and the involuntary “abandonment” of  bereavement. In 1 Samuel 30, we read how even his own warriors turned against him and talked of stoning him. Despite all that, David declares his confidence in God’s glad welcome, even if every other person should turn away and turn against him.

As Charles Spurgeon reminded us, “‘But I am so lonely in the world,’ says another, ‘no man cares for me.’ There is one man at any rate who does so care; a true man like yourself. He is your brother still, and does not forget the lonely spirit" (Charles H. Spurgeon, Joy to the World). The Triune God is always with us and dwells in believers, not through any merit of our own, but because of the life and work of Christ. He has not left us as orphans (John 14:18). He never, never, never leaves or forsakes His people (Hebrews 13:5).

 

So What? Application

How are we to respond to these things?

Pray. Make these words your own. Pray them aloud or in your heart. Use them to turn the gaze of your heart back toward the Lord.

Seek God’s face. He is looking for you. Will you meet His eyes? “Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always” (Psalms 105:4 NIV). The people we love and earthly things we look to for our identity will always disappoint us eventually. Only the Lord can fully satisfy the lonely places of our hearts. Only our identity as the Lord’s children will never be stripped from us.

Trust His readiness to be found. "Jesus willingly looked at the back of God’s head so that we would never look at anything but his face. So, today, when you envision God with the eyes of your heart, envision his face, because if you are his child it is the only thing you are ever going to see" (Paul David Tripp, A Shelter in the Time of Storm).

Lean on His faithfulness. When people abandon you and betray you or simply let you down because of human limitations and not moral fault, take the loneliness, rejection, and disappointment to the Lord.  Offer them to Him, and yourself with them. Jesus was forsaken by the Father on the cross so that His children never would be. When God seems hidden from us, we can take Him at His word as David does here. We can confess with our mouths even if we don’t feel it emotionally: “the Lord will receive me.” This is how we encourage ourselves in the Lord: we keep telling ourselves the truth, building new default mental patterns according to truth, until the day eventually comes when we feel the reality of it again.

Loneliness can be such a dark emotion. It can certainly contribute to our souls’ white nights. Thanks be to God that Christian believers are not without solace in our loneliness. Even if Jesus doesn’t take away the loneliness altogether, He will come into it with us. Even if He doesn’t immediately turn on the lights to dispel our emotional or spiritual darkness, He will hold our hands through the dark night of the soul (and always).

Christ’s heart for us means that he will be our never-failing friend no matter what friends we do or do not enjoy on earth. He offers us a friendship that gets underneath the pain of our loneliness. While that pain does not go away, its sting is made fully bearable by the far deeper friendship of Jesus. He walks with us through every moment. He knows the pain of being betrayed by a friend, but he will never betray us. He will not even so much as coolly welcome us. That is not who he is. That is not his heart (Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly).

Please pray with me, using the words of missionary Amy Carmichael:

Lover Divine, whose love has sought and found me,
Thou dost not leave me when the night is round me;
Cause me to be, held fast by Love eternal,
More than a conqueror. 

 

Open mine eyes to see the stars above me,
Quicken my heart that I may feel Thee love me,
Make me, and keep me through Thy love eternal,
More than a conqueror. 

 

What storm can shatter, gloom of darkness frighten
One whom the Lord doth shelter, cherish, lighten?
O let me be, through powers of love eternal,
More than a conqueror (Rose from Brier, 138).

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I ask this. Amen.

Psalm 27 and Saving Light in Our Souls' Dark Nights

    

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Of David.

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation— 

whom shall I fear? 

The Lord is the stronghold of my life— 

of whom shall I be afraid? 

When the wicked advance against me 

to devour me, 

it is my enemies and my foes 

who will stumble and fall. 

Though an army besiege me, 

my heart will not fear; 

though war break out against me, 

even then I will be confident.

Psalm 27:1-3 NIV

 

In Psalm 27, God through David has given us a prayer-song for when we are afraid of the dark—whatever kind of dark, whether literal darkness or emotional and spiritual darkness. In this Psalm, David seeks shelter in God’s personal presence with confidence borne out of His past rescues. In the first post, we considered the themes and structure of the Psalm as a whole. In this post, we’re dwelling on the first section of three verses.

 

In this first section (27:1-3), David describes his experience of God’s saving defense. The Psalm begins with a pair of parallel couplets: David says something true of God, then asks a rhetorical question brimming with confidence. And he does this twice.

 

He has known the Lord as his light, his salvation, his stronghold, and his defense.

 

Light at night gives us guidance and security. City girls like me are rather insulated against real darkness, apart from a blackout during a storm, but we might think of a flashlight when there is no power or a nightlight in a dark bedroom for comfort and vision. Or perhaps we think of the comforting familiarity of the lights given by God to mark the days and seasons, the constellations and moonlight that guided and kept David company during the long nights with his flocks.

 

Without light at night, we so easily lose our way. In college, I had to drive down a dark, two-lane country road to go to an evening Bible study. Looking for an unlit gate and driveway in the absence of streetlights or even house lights visible from the highway always gave me anxiety. The void of a dark world beyond the small puddle of light from my headlamps felt ominous and insecure. I wanted brighter, better light to lead me to my destination. Continuing the theme, we might think of the pillar of God’s glory-fire which led and also guarded the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings for 40 years:

 

“The Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to lead them on their way during the day and in a pillar of fire to give them light at night, so that they could travel day or night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never left its place in front of the people.”

Exodus 13:21-22 CSB

 

That light showed God’s people God’s way and provided a visible reminder of the security of God’s presence. God also displayed His presence in a bright shekinah glory cloud descending on Solomon’s temple at its dedication:

 

“When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the Lord’s temple, and because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple.”

1 Kings 8:10-11 CSB

 

In these two examples, the presence of God manifests as light, glorious light. In the new Jerusalem to come, the apostle John foresaw:

 

“The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never close by day because it will never be night there.”

Revelation 21:23-25 CSB

 

The Lord is not only David’s light: He is also his salvation. Salvation, in its simplest sense, means rescue. In Hebrew, it could also be translated “room to breathe” (Thomas Nelson Study Bible, note on Psalm 3:8). “Light” and “salvation” in combination convey the single concept of “saving light.” The most intense darkness I remember was the darkness outside our tent on a camping trip early in our marriage. My mini Maglite flashlight could not budge the weighed blanket of darkness pressing in on me. Darkness like that feels alive and threatening, even predatory. Every noise is freighted with awful possibility and unseen dangers.  In that darkness, a trusted person bearing a stronger light would have felt like rescue and security.  (The related names Joshua and Jesus mean “Yahweh saves,” or in the simplest sense, “Savior.”) It is possible that the salvation in this verse has a near-term meaning of God’s miraculous rescue from human enemies and physical danger, of which David knew plenty; at the same time, it is possible that the shadow of the cross marks this verse with the spiritual sense of rescue from sin and death in the person of the Savior, Jesus Christ. In any case, David celebrates God as his Rescuer, even though in the moment he is surrounded by enemies who want to eat him alive (verse 2).

 

The word “stronghold”  or “refuge” conveys the image of a fortress or castle. Tolkien fans may think of Helm’s Deep; or in a more modern image, one might imagine a nuclear bunker deep beneath the earth or a panic room. This fortress is such a sure and well-defended one that the wicked advancing against David will themselves be defeated. David has confidence because God is his impenetrable fortress, a castle no enemy can breach without His permission.

 

Where does this confidence come from? Surrounded by enemies, threatened by the wicked, war declared against him, even so David is confident in victory. David can take courage despite overwhelming foes and difficulties because, as strong and powerful as they are, his God is even mightier. 

 

This confidence does not imply that trusting God means health, wealth, and prosperity. Nor does it guarantee every battle will go our way or no hurt come to us. It does, however, mean that for the child of God, all things weave together for our good and God’s glory. It means God is with us and for us in all things. It means that, when the last page of our life is written, all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well (Julian of Norwich).

 

As a whole, David testifies that God is his light in the darkness, his comforting Guide, his Rescuer, his secure fortress, his unconquerable defense. This first section of Psalm 27 starts and ends with David’s declaration of trust: even if an entire army has him surrounded and declares war, his heart will not fear but will instead be confident. So strong is his experience of God’s protection.

 

An echo of David’s confidence sounds a millennium later at the end of Romans 8:

 

“What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Romans 8:31-37 CSB

 

What about you? Can you remember a time in your life when the Lord showed Himself to be your light and your salvation? Have you experienced God’s rescue from enemies who were too strong for you? If so, spend some time remembering and perhaps journaling God’s work in your past as a way to encourage trust in Him now. If not, I encourage you to borrow courage from the experiences of people in the Bible and Christian history: people like Joseph and Joshua, David and Elijah, Daniel and Peter and Paul; people like Corrie ten Boom, Darlene Deibler Rose, John Newton, John Bunyan, Jane Grey, Ridley and Latimer, and Charles Spurgeon.

 

Are you overwhelmed and outnumbered by enemies and battles today? Are you besieged by trials and squeezed by difficulties? Does it feel like human helpers have failed and comforts fled, leaving you alone and scared in the dark? If so, my heart is with yours. Your troubles do not mean God’s absence. He will never leave or abandon you. The battles you’ve lost and sins you’ve committed do not mean you have lost the war or forfeited God’s love. In the darkness, I encourage you to dwell on the greatness and power of God more than you contemplate the strength of your enemies and the size of your challenges. In the darkness, the stars seem brighter. Look for the light in the darkness; ask for His light. Look for the promises of God. Look at His faithfulness over the millennia of human history. Hope against hope that He will be for you what He has been for others.

 

The God who has rescued, led, defended, and comforted in the dark nights and desperate battles of others still does so today. We can trust Him with our souls’ three o’clocks.

 

Lord, in our darkness shine Your light.

In our tribulations, be our Rescuer.

When we are under attack from enemies without and fears within, be our strong refuge, our safe place.

All our hope and confidence are in You. We believe; help our unbelief, in Jesus’ name. Amen.