Join us for our weekly time of guided prayer and worship via Zoom ( a link will be provided later this week).To see the rest of our daily devotionals, with prayers, songs and reflections, click here. To sign up for daily emails, click here.

Prayers

Morning
1. Readings
  1. Old Testament: Genesis 3:1-15
  2. Psalm: 8
2. Prayer: The Lord's Prayer
3. Hymn: Come Thou Fount
Evening
1. Readings
  1. New Testament: Romans 5:12-21
  2. Psalm 138
2. Hymn: Abide With Me
3. Prayer: Psalm 138:7-8 (below)

Devotional on Psalm 138

The cover story of my copy of Time Magazine this month reads, “The Day the World Stopped.” The last couple of days have felt like it, haven’t they? Jobs, social engagements, entertainment, worship… all the old routines and rituals and structures that seemed to power our lives and give us meaning have ground to a halt. We can’t even do the things we used to do on days when our own personal lives stopped, because the rest of the world has. We find ourselves asking, “When will the world start up again? When it starts up again, what kind of world will it be?” Because it has shut down.

Or so it seems.

In Psalm 138, one of our Scripture readings for today, life with God is roaring along. The author David feels as if his life with/before God gives him meaning and power and purpose, though every authority is arrayed against him. The world is moving (v. 1-6). And then it slams to a halt. Trouble comes, the wrath of enemies is arrayed against him. Where is the progress? Where is the movement? Where is the growth? The world has stopped. Life with God has stopped (v. 7-8).

Or so it seems.

We have been planting Christ the King- Savannah for almost two years, and I have spent much of that time waiting for the trouble to end, for challenges to cease… And then we had a plague that made the whole world stop. Now what? Wait around for ministry can start again? For the world to start again? For life with God to start again? Surely you know the feeling? “If I just get over this challenge, then the life I wanted to live will start up.”

Or so it seems.

But the psalmist sees with the eyes of faith. He sees trouble and challenge, not as a barrier to knowing God, but as the pathway to knowing God. In the places of difficulty, we find that our walk with God has begun. His steadfast love is with us, and he reveals that love to us as he is present with us in the challenge (v. 7-8). Trouble is the name of the street that we walk on when we meet God; its the stage for his drama of redemption. So we can’t, as Christians, pretend like there is no trouble. We can’t simply try to live on as normal, or as close to normal as we can. Because then we might miss the grace in the midst of trouble. But we also can’t sit around waiting for the world start again. Because it has started already. It never really stopped. God was present to us, in sickness and in health.

So what do we do? We live the life of faith as a prayer. Boldly entering into the times of trouble, confident in the presence of God with us, wanting to know him more. Pleading that he would be with us. “O Lord, do not forsake the work of my hands” (v. 8).

For discussion:
1. What hurt the most when the world seemed to stop?
2. How is God revealing himself to you in the midst of that stopping?

A prayer for presence, from Psalm 138:

   [7] Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
       you preserve my life;
   you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
       and your right hand delivers me.
   [8] The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
       your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
       Do not forsake the work of your hands. (ESV)