A Prayer To Receive Strength and Joy During These Challenging Days

 So yesterday we began to take a look at the uplifting verses we find in Psalm 34.  We only got half way through the Psalm so we’ll continue on today as we seek to find strength and joy during these challenging days.  God is generous and God is kind.  We do need to come to Him and share our lives with Him so He can help us reach out and receive all the good things He has for us.  That’s the foundation of life that is good – life with God.

Come, my children, and listen to me, and I will teach you to fear the Lord.  Psalm 34:10

And so Lord, that’s what we are doing together today, we are coming to You, our good Father, as Your dearly loved children.  We come in faith that You listen to us and that You will teach us all we need to know today in order to live lives that honour You and give You Your right place in our lives.  As children often don’t know much about what’s needed and have much to learn as their parents guide them, so we want to come with humility admitting that we don’t know much and need Your guidance today.  Give us ears to hear and hearts to receive all that You are seeking to teach us today.  We know that in love, one step at a time, You will show us all that we need for a safe and secure and satisfying life.  That’s the heart of a loving father for his children and Your love for us is astronomically more than the love of the most loving parent.

Does anyone want to live a life that is long and prosperous? Then keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies! Turn away from evil and do good. Psalm 34:11-13

Well Lord, in these days where so many people have so much to complain about and react to with anger we pray that our own tongues will be kept from speaking evil and our lips from telling lies.  We don’t want to think ugly thoughts, speak ugly words, or even see and hear all the vitriol on social media and television.  Help us to turn down and turn off things that lead to disquiet and discontent in us.  Give us strength instead to spend time with those things that bring peace. 

Search for peace, and work to maintain it. Psalm 34:14

What’s the work of peace that You have in mind for us today?  Help us to reach across community divides and be peace makers and peace maintainers.  Help us to do all we can to bring about peace in troubled circumstances and to maintain peace and harmony wherever we go.  Let us not be those who stir up discord even when we have legitimately different points of view with others.  Help us to be people of grace and peace.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.  John 14:27, Isaiah 26:3

Help us to receive the peace that You are giving in generous measure and maintaining in us when we keep our thoughts on You and our hearts at rest as we trust You.

This Psalm ends with a number of contrasts between those who do what is right and those who do evil.  As I read these verses, let’s let these be helpful motivators for us to be numbered in the group who do what is right.

The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right; his ears are open to their cries for help. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil; he will erase their memory from the earth. The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.  He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;  he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.  Psalm 34:15-18

The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them is broken! Calamity will surely destroy the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished. But the Lord will redeem those who serve him. No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.  Psalm 34:19-22

Well Lord, on our own we struggle with many troubles and so many things that break our hearts and crush our spirits.  But with You we find rescue from all of that.  How grateful we are for Your power at work on our behalf and the fact that we can live securely in You today. 

We often remind ourselves of the wonderful truth, “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.”  Colossians 3:3  We want to settle in and just live there today … hidden with Christ in God.  Amen