Faithful God,
We give you thanks and praise for your faithfulness and trustworthiness. Help us to lean into and trust your faithfulness in the midst of the strife and chaos that has been unleashed on our country and in this world. Help us not to listen to the voices of strife and deception, chaos and gloom, discouragement and despair that we hear in the media, social media, and even from well-meaning friends and family. Help us to listen only to your voice. Help us to hear your Hope and your Peace. Help us not trust in the “horses” or “chariots” of government, media, education, arts & entertainment, or business, but to trust in the Name of you, our Lord and God. Help us to focus on taking delight in you so that we can hear your promises of peace to your faithful servants. Let us not be like the ten spies in the Promised Land who saw the giants of the land and cowered in fear, but let us have the “different spirit” like Caleb and follow you wholeheartedly. Help us to focus on your voice, trust in your faithfulness and promises, and rest in the peace the Holy Spirit offers to us. Through Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.
“I will listen to what God the Lord says; he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants— but let them not turn to folly.” (Psalm 85:8)
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7)
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.” Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:27-33)
“But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.” (Numbers 14:24)
(adapted from October 19, 2020 post)