A Prayer to Start (or End) the Day

Today we stumbled across a site containing liturgical readings with an unusual name, The Peanut Gallery. Art Chartier is a retired pastor who lives in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Although we usually post at 5:30 PM, EST, I know many of you read this in the morning, for which it was written.

Praying the Psalms:  Psalm 25: I give my life to you

Praying the Psalms

+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Opening – (Northumbria Community)

One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory.

Morning Reading: Psalm 25 (NLT)

O Lord, I give my life to you. I trust in you, my God! Do not let me be disgraced, or let my enemies rejoice in my defeat. No one who trusts in you will ever be disgraced, but disgrace comes to those who try to deceive others.

Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you. Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love, which you have shown from long ages past. Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.

The Lord is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray. He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way. The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his covenant and obey his demands.

For the honor of your name, O Lord, forgive my many, many sins. Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose. They will live in prosperity, and their children will inherit the land. The Lord is a friend to those who fear him. He teaches them his covenant. My eyes are always on the Lord, for he rescues me from the traps of my enemies.

Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress. My problems go from bad to worse. Oh, save me from them all! Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins. See how many enemies I have and how viciously they hate me! Protect me! Rescue my life from them! Do not let me be disgraced, for in you I take refuge. May integrity and honesty protect me, for I put my hope in you.

O God, ransom Israel from all its troubles.
__________

Morning Prayer

O Lord our God: Our lives are in your hands, we trust you –

+ For you guide and teach all who seek you
+ For you care for the humble and afflicted
+ For your ways are merciful and true
+ For you give our souls rest and refuge
+ For you include us in your covenant love
+ For you will never put us to shame as we wait on you

O Lord our God: Remember us in the light of your unfailing love –

+ Erase from our memories past sins already forgiven
+ Save us from our troubles and deliver us from evil

O Lord our God: Hear the cries of your people throughout the world –

+ Deliver us from shame and embarrassment before our enemies
+ Teach us how to live godly lives no matter our circumstances
+ Grant us forgiveness and look on us with loving-kindness and mercy
+ Keep us from wandering that we might live with integrity and honor

O Lord our God: We approach your throne of grace through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grant our requests according to your sovereign purpose, that your Name may be glorified throughout the earth. Amen.
__________

“Remember Me” (Psalm 25) – The Psalm Project

__________

Blessing – (Northumbrian Community)

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
__________

+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Meet Me in the Morning

O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. — Ps. 63: 1 NKJV

---

I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours. — William Wilberforce

---

(This is a republishing of an article that appeared here at C201 a year ago.)

At the summer camp where my wife and I met, we learned a song based on Psalm 63, Early Will I Seek Thee.

I’m not a morning person, so the concept of ‘morning devotions’ isn’t part of my heritage, though I’ll grant you that the trajectory of your entire day is formed in the first half hour.  I’ve heard it said that, “Most Christians are defeated between their bed and the breakfast table.”

However, when I have a Christian book I’m working on, yes, I can get up early and start the day with it, but most of my serious reading for the past 20 years has come as part of the evening devotional time I’ve spent with my kids, who are both now college age.

Maybe that’s why this blog publishes at what is here in the U.S. and Canada between 5:00 and 6:00 PM EST most days. It’s my hat-tip to afternoon devotional readers.

However, it’s worth noting that only the KJV and NKJV use the term ‘early.’ Now before you worry, there is indeed a lot of scriptural precedent for beginning the day with a sense of God’s presence, with Scripture meditation, and with a word of prayer. But the other translations — including the very ‘literal’ NASB — felt the intent of the Hebrew in Ps. 63 was better expressed in terms of ‘earnestness.’

It is our earnestness God desires more than anything.

O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. – Ps. 63: 1 NLT

Here’s how The Message translates the entire Psalm:

God—you’re my God!
I can’t get enough of you!
I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God,
traveling across dry and weary deserts.

^2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
My arms wave like banners of praise to you.

^5-8 I eat my fill of prime rib and gravy;
I smack my lips. It’s time to shout praises!
If I’m sleepless at midnight,
I spend the hours in grateful reflection.
Because you’ve always stood up for me,
I’m free to run and play.
I hold on to you for dear life,
and you hold me steady as a post.

^9-11 Those who are out to get me are marked for doom,
marked for death, bound for hell.
They’ll die violent deaths;
jackals will tear them limb from limb.
But the king is glad in God;
his true friends spread the joy,
While small-minded gossips
are gagged for good.

Those with an aversion to morning devotions might also check out Isaiah 26:9

My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. – ESV

Surprisingly in this verse however, several translations incorporate both morning and evening references, including, interestingly enough, this one:

All night long I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek for God. For only when you come to judge the earth will people learn what is right. – NLT (emphasis added)

Before you take sides on this one, here are some other verses to remember:

Psalm 86:3 — Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.

Psalm 71:24 — My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion.

Psalm 71:8 — My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long. (all NIV)

And finally, from our out-of-context department, this line from Psalm 127:2

It is vain for you to rise up early.

Notice I didn’t highlight that one in green; scripture, when taken totally out of context doesn’t really count, does it?

…But it was my favorite verse for many years.

Questions:

Do you find that God meets you in different ways at different times of the day?

Even though there is obviously a morning/evening balance in scripture, many of our classic hymns have emphasized morning. “Early in the morning, our song shall rise to thee…” “Morning by morning new mercies I see…” “When morning guilds the skies, my heart awakening cries.” Do you think that the Bible seems to favor morning time with God over evening time with Him?

(This might be a good point to end with a return visit to this song.)

Devotions for Morning and Evening

O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. — Ps. 63: 1 NKJV

---

I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours. — William Wilberforce

---

At the summer camp where my wife and I met, we learned a song based on Psalm 63, Early Will I Seek Thee.

I’m not a morning person, so the concept of ‘morning devotions’ isn’t part of my heritage. When I have a Christian book I’m working on, I can get up early and start the day with it, but most of my serious reading for the past 20 years has come as part of the evening devotional time I’ve spent with my kids, who are both now college age.

Maybe that’s why this blog publishes here in North America between 5:00 and 6:00 PM most days. It’s my hat-tip to afternoon devotional readers.

However, it’s worth noting that only the KJV and NKJV use the term ‘early.’ Now before you worry, there is indeed a lot of scriptural precedent for beginning the day with a sense of God’s presence, with Scripture meditation, and with a word of prayer. But the other translations — including the very ‘literal’ NASB — felt the intent of the Hebrew in Ps. 63 was better expressed in terms of ‘earnestness.’

It is our earnestness God desires more than anything.

O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. – Ps. 63: 1 NLT

Here’s how The Message translates the entire Psalm:

  God—you’re my God!
    I can’t get enough of you!
I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God,
    traveling across dry and weary deserts.

^2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
    drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
    My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
    My arms wave like banners of praise to you.

^5-8 I eat my fill of prime rib and gravy;
    I smack my lips. It’s time to shout praises!
If I’m sleepless at midnight,
    I spend the hours in grateful reflection.
Because you’ve always stood up for me,
    I’m free to run and play.
I hold on to you for dear life,
    and you hold me steady as a post.

^9-11 Those who are out to get me are marked for doom,
    marked for death, bound for hell.
They’ll die violent deaths;
    jackals will tear them limb from limb.
But the king is glad in God;
    his true friends spread the joy,
While small-minded gossips
    are gagged for good.

Those with an aversion to morning devotions might also check out Isaiah 26:9

My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you. For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.  – ESV

Surprisingly in this verse however, several translations incorporate both morning and evening references, including, interestingly enough, this one:

All night long I search for you; in the morning I earnestly seek for God. For only when you come to judge the earth will people learn what is right. – NLT (emphasis added)

Before you take sides on this one, here are some other verses to remember:

Psalm 86:3 — Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.

Psalm 71:24 — My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion.

Psalm 71:8 — My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long.    (all NIV)

And finally, from our out-of-context department, this line from Psalm 127:2

It is vain for you to rise up early.

Notice I didn’t highlight that one in green; scripture, when taken totally out of context doesn’t really count, does it?

…But it was my favorite verse for many years.

Questions:

Do you find that God meets you in different ways at different times of the day?

Even though there is obviously a morning/evening balance in scripture, many of our classic hymns have emphasized morning. “Early in the morning, our song shall rise to thee…” “Morning by morning new mercies I see…” “When morning guilds the skies, my heart awakening cries.”  Do you think that the Bible seems to favor morning time with God over evening time with Him?

(This might be a good point to end with a return visit to this song.)

Liturgy for a New Year

If you click over to Thinking Out Loud, you’ll see that I’ve begun the new year with a strong recommendation to check out a new liturgical resource, the book Common Prayer by Shane Claiborne et al.    If the word “liturgical” scares you, this is exactly the book you might want to consider.   Take a minute to review my comments there first.

After today I’ll go back to sourcing devotional material from a variety of sources, but here is an outline of the Common Prayer prescribed reading for tomorrow, Sunday, January 2nd:

(sections in blue are repeated by the group if used in a group setting.)

Basil of Caesarea (330 – 379)

Basil was born in modern-day Turkey. His grandfather was martyred, and his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, became a very influential bishop. In an age marked by doctrinal battles within the church, Basil was a tireless defender of orthodoxy. He is known as an early developer of Christian monasticism, and an incredible preacher and writer. Among his many writings are some of the church’s earliest prayers. Basil first left the world to join the monastery, but eventually brought the monastery to the world through the city of Basiliad, also called “The New City.” This was a giant community of monastic men and women working with doctors and other lay-people to provide food, clothing, shelter, and medical assistance to the poor of Caesarea. He later went on to become a priest and a bishop, but he always kept his vision of a monastic life not cut off from the world but embracing the pain and sorrow
of the world.

O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you

as the day rises to meet the sun.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Come, let us bow down and bend the knee (pause) let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Song “Steal Away to -Jesus”

Lord, help us believe (pause) that we might see you come.

Psalm 14:1 – 4

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” : All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good.

The Lord looks down from heaven upon us all (pause) to see if there is any who is wise, if there is one who seeks after God.

Every one has proved faithless; all alike have turned bad (pause) there is none who does good; no, not one.

Have they no knowledge, all those evildoers (pause) who eat up my -people like bread and do not call upon the Lord?

Lord, help us believe (pause) that we might see you come.

Genesis 28:10 – 22

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. ¹⁵ I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear ²¹ so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God ²² and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

John 6:41 – 47

⁴¹ At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

⁴³ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

Lord, help us believe (pause) that we might see you come.

Basil of Caesarea wrote, “When someone steals a person’s clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to those who need it; the shoes rotting in your closet to the one who has no shoes. The money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”

Prayers for Others

Our Father (repeat The Lord’s Prayer)

Lord, you are always weaving the things of heaven with the things of earth. You dwell among us, above us, and within us. Make us expectant of angels tarrying to do your work. Form us into eager messengers, ready to speak peace in broken communities. Amen.

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you (pause) wherever he may send you;

may he guide you through the wilderness (pause) protect you through the storm;

may he bring you home rejoicing (pause) at the wonders he has shown you;

may he bring you home rejoicing (pause) once again into our doors.

You may also follow along at commonprayer.net