Monday 22nd June | Alice Wilkinson
Readings
Reflection
Psalm 44 begins in remembering. The writer recalls his ancestors, and the ways in which God delivered them, and planted them. He recognises that none of these victories were due to the skill of their sword or the strength of their hands, but to God alone, in His glory, out of love.
The Psalm then moved on to lament, as the Psalmist expresses confusion at the apparent absence of God. In light of the past, this current situation is unintelligible, and the pain of the apparent rejection is especially sharp because they can’t see where they have sinned against God, or broken his covenant. So why has he hidden his face from them? Why does he appear to be asleep?
Most of us in suffering stop praying or ask for help but then just try to fix the problem ourselves. Here, the psalmist shouts his pain, frustration and anger to God, but the significant thing is that he does this before God - he is processing his grief in sustained prayer. God understands and loves us so well that he permits and even encourages us to speak to him with uncensored hearts. He isn’t asleep, but he won’t be rushed. He knows what he’s doing. He has a plan, and it is a plan of love.
Remembering God’s deliverance helps us to faithfully obey him and to trust him now. He’s faithful, he’s awake, and his plan is good. In Judges 2, when God’s people forgot that the Lord had rescued their ancestors from slavery, they broke their convenant with him, turned to other gods, and made covenants with pagan tribes. We must forgo the ways of the world in order to be obedient to God. His ways are higher than ours - He designed us in love, and he knows what is best for us. The passage from Luke reminds us that we must not only sacrifice the ways of the world to be obedient to God, but that we must also sacrifice ourselves, laying down our lives and our loves in order to pick up the cross and follow him into a new covenant relationship.
Keller writes that “we shouldn’t look at Church history as if it contained some great race of heroes that has vanished irretrievably”. Their God is our God. We must remember what he has done in his steadfast love - from creation, to freedom from Egypt, to the promised land, to our servant King on a wooden cross. And when we remember what he has done in our own lives, we shouldn’t think that we’ll never be capable of those things again. We weren’t capable of it the first time. It was God. And He hasn’t gone anywhere. He never will.
Prayers
God, thank you for the way you have been victorious through the ages, and that you are still with me now. Thank you that you are eternal, unchanging in your person, character and attributes. Let me remember that with excited anticipation for the things you will be doing today through me. Amen.
Lord I praise you for being a God who invites us to give you a long list of complaints. How patient, loving and caring you are to all your children. Thank you for the invitation to unburden myself fully, without the need to say everything in ‘the right way’. Amen.
Lord, I confess that to me you also seem to be doing nothing sometimes. But that is wrong. The cross proved indisputably, eternally, that you do care. I praise you and rest in you for that. Amen.
Collect
Eternal Father,
When the gospel of Christ first came to our land
You gloriously confirmed the faith of Alban
By making him the first to win a martyr’s crown:
Grant that, following his example,
In the fellowship of the saints
We may worship you, the living God,
And give true witness to Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
Who is alive and reigns with you,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and for ever.
Amen.
