Page 63 - Living light - The Psalms

Monday August 12 - Be still
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him... Psalm 37:7
Remember the old wartime slogan, Keep calm and carry on? Perhaps a Christian variant could be, Keep still and wait ready! This is surely one of the hardest things to do. Our culture encourages us to keep on the move, always striving, never sitting back. There’s the modern blight of FOMO (the fear of missing out), of being left behind and missing some ‘awesome’ (but usually trivial) event. This really should not concern us. In John 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” – but how easy it is for us to be swept away by worldly concerns.
We are instructed to ‘be still before the Lord’. Is it that we may seem to be still and contemplative to others, but, in actuality our mind is racing, making plans for this or that? God can see this and asks us to wait patiently for him. I am not one for procrastination, so this is difficult, but my life is littered by the ‘car crashes’ of unwise actions and decisions when I failed to follow this simple command. Sometimes the simplest instructions are the hardest to follow. It’s as if the Lord is actually the patient one in this partnership, waiting for us to settle down into silence – and only then speaking into our lives. Perhaps we can do this now?
Father in heaven, please help me to settle down now and listen to your voice. Amen.
Tuesday August 13 - Be content
Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked...
Psalm 37:16
Our culture is one that encourages the accumulation of wealth and the coveting of lifestyles enjoyed by the wealthy. We are reminded of the sentiment in the famous blessing in Luke 6:20, “Blessed are you who are poor...” with the warning a few verses later, “But woe to you who are rich...” (v 24). The former have the comfort of living in God’s kingdom, but the latter are said to have already received their comfort. What good is it to have riches if the benefits are fleeting, contrasted with the eternal promises of living in the kingdom of God?
One of the saddest things to see has been the growth of the so-called ‘prosperity gospel’ in Africa, a corruption exported by some preachers from the richer countries in the West. This shifts the emphasis from faith in Jesus to a reliance on wealth to make you happy, and wherever it takes hold it replaces the true gospel of salvation. The end result is inevitably unhappiness and frustration, as it provides no comfort and simply creates a mindset of aspiring to attain worldly riches. Surely it is better to be poor and reliant on God’s provisions than to emulate the ways of the wicked? The riches that we will attain will be the true riches of heaven – and who wouldn’t want that?
Father in heaven, please help me to be content with what I have and not strive for the wealth that I see enjoyed by others. Amen.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
PRAYER FOR TODAY
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