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As If Heaven Had Ordained It
“Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” – Joshua 21:45
When the Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia in 1774 to unite against the British, they decided to open their proceedings in scripture and prayer. An Episcopalian minister named Jacob Duché was chosen. Before his prayer, rumors arrived that the British had attacked Boston. A frightened and receptive audience awaited as Duché read Psalms 35:1: “Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me!” It was the assigned reading for the day in the Episcopal lectionary, but John Adams says members of the Continental Congress were stunned when they heard the words. Adams wrote, “It seemed as if Heaven had ordained that psalm to be read on that morning.” Have you had such an experience where the scripture seemed perfect for what you were going through at the time? I have several such scriptures marked in my Bible. Once when I was anxious about a situation at work, I read Psalm 34:4, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” That verse gave me sudden comfort. Eventually, everything worked out. Another verse that has helped me when facing a difficult decision is the promise of James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” Praying over that promise, God has given me direction time after time. Once when I was a hospital chaplain, I visited a patient writhing in pain, asking me to pray. As I was about to pray, two nurses entered and gave her tablets to take for pain, then left the room. Immediately I began to pray, and I sensed God telling me to quote Psalm 23, so I did. Even before I finished the psalm, she grew peaceful and still. I finished quoting the psalm, added a few more words asking God for healing, and then I looked up. The patient was resting. Her sister-in-law looked at me, eyes wide in amazement. I said, “That pain medicine hasn’t had time to work, has it?” The sister-in-law said, “No, but Psalm 23 did!” What scripture has given you guidance, comfort, or strength “as if Heaven had ordained” it?
Prayer
Lord, my heart is full of anxieties and desires, but your word is full of good promises and timely guidance. As I read scripture, show me how it applies to my life as if Heaven had ordained it for this day.
The hardest prayer to pray
(Few of us want to pray a prayer of confession. And when we do confess, we may say, “Lord, if I have sinned” (God knows we have!) or we soft-sell it with some safe sin, like, “Lord, I know I ran a red light” (He knows a lot worse things than that!) Our confession is rarely raw, vulnerable or gut-wrenching. But Biblical confesssion is brutally honest. So is this prayer, based on Psalm 38. Confession is the hardest prayer to pray, but in the end, it is the most rewarding. Copyright by Bob Rogers).
Lord, my sin is too much for me to bear! I feel the weight of my sin all the more as Your punishment presses down on me. My sin stinks like a festering wound, and my stomach turns at the smell of my foolishness. It hurts that my wrongdoing caused my loved ones and friends to stand back from me, and my enemies have used it to attack me, but it hurts even more, that I feel the pain of separation from You. I know that nothing is hidden from You. Knowing that You see my wicked heart and deceitful mind causes my skin to crawl and my heart to ache. So I confess my sin; I make no excuses; it troubles me; I am disgusted by what I have done. I trust in You, Lord, to forgive me and save me. Lord, do not leave me; hurry to help me, for You are my Savior and my only hope for forgiveness.
Saturday, Day of Waiting
Article copyright by Bob Rogers.
Like Wednesday of Holy Week, nothing is recorded in the Gospels about what happened on Saturday. However, we know about the day because Mark 15:42 tells us that they buried Jesus before sundown on Friday, so they could rest on Saturday, the Sabbath. Nothing more is recorded until Mark 16:1 tells what happened on the first day of the week, which was Easter Sunday. (Matthew 27:62-66 does record that on Saturday, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, agreed to post guards at the tomb of Christ.) Saturday was a day of waiting and wondering what would happen next. They had no idea anything good was going to happen the next day. They just had to wait on the Lord.
Isaiah 40:31 (KJV) says, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Saturday, the day of waiting, teaches us to wait on the Lord. Waiting can be excruciatingly hard.
We have all agonized waiting. Maybe you waited to get a job or get a promotion or get a date or get an important phone call or get a test result. Right now, the whole world is waiting—waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to subside. Many of you are sheltered in place, worried about your health, worried about your job, wondering when this will all end. This kind of waiting is very, very hard. This was how the disciples felt that Saturday before Easter when they waited. They wondered what was next, and they did not expect it to be good. After all, their leader had been arrested and crucified.
The Hebrew word for “wait” in Isaiah and Psalms is a word for a chord, or rope. The idea of the word is that God has thrown us a rope, and asks us to hold on, because He has the other end. That’s why “wait” in Isaiah 40:31 is also translated “hope” or “trust.”
What’s more, you and I know the rest of the story. We know that on Easter Sunday, they got news more wonderful than they could ever imagine, because Christ arose!
That is why we who are followers of the Risen Christ can wait on this Saturday, because we are Easter Sunday people. We can wait on the Lord, for even when we don’t know what the future holds, we know Who holds the future—His name is Jesus, and He has already conquered sin and death and the grave and hell. We can wait in the uncertainty of Saturday, because tomorrow is a certain Sunday!
How to join prayer with Bible reading, using Psalm 119
Article copyright 2017 by Bob Rogers
“I rise before dawn and cry out for help (prayer);
I put my hope in Your word (scripture).” – Psalm 119:147, HCSB
Prayer and daily Bible reading are both stronger if they are done together, as Psalm 119:147 indicates above by listing them together. In fact, one may use key verses from Psalm 119 to prepare the heart before reading scripture, and to reflect in prayer after reading scripture. Here are the verses, all of them from Psalm 119, a psalm that delights in the Word of God. I encourage you to use the first four verses of preparation, to guide a short prayer time before your daily Bible reading. Then read the scripture. After your Bible reading, instead of setting the scripture aside, keep your Bible in front of you as you then pray the last four verses of application.
1) Preparation. Before reading scripture ask God to:
• V. 18 – open my eyes: “Open my eyes so that I may contemplate wonderful things from Your instruction.”
• V. 66- teach me: “Lord… teach me Your statutes.”
• V. 105 – direct me: “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.”
• V. 125- give me discernment: “I am Your servant; give me understanding so that I may know Your decrees.”
2) Application. After reading scripture reflect in prayer on:
• V. 11- a sin to confess: “I have treasured Your word in my heart that I may not sin against You.”
• V. 38- a promise to claim: “Confirm what You said to Your servant…”
• V. 60- a command to obey: “I hurried, not hesitating, to keep Your commands.”
• V. 112- a resolution to make: “I am resolved to obey Your statutes to the very end.”
Print this guide and keep it by your Bible, or write this in the margin of your Bible at Psalm 119, and use it daily in reading scripture. May it aid you to engage your heart, mind and will in your daily devotions.
David the King Meets B.B. King
Copyright 2015 by Bob Rogers
Imagine if legendary blues singer B.B. King died and went to heaven, and met King David, singer of the psalms. What would their conversation be like? Here’s how I imagine it:
B.B.: Are you David? Nice to meet you, sir. My name is Riley B. King, but my friends call me B.B.
David: Why do they call you B.B.?
B.B.: It stands for Blues Boy. You know, David, we have a lot in common!
David: What’s that?
B.B.: Both born in small towns, you in Bethlehem, and me in Itta Bena, Mississippi. Both played stringed instruments, you the harp and me the guitar. This is my guitar, Lucille. And we both sang the blues.
David: I’m glad you recognize that. When people think of my psalms, they may think of praises to God. But if you really read the psalms, you will find that many of them express disappointment with God. I wrote many of them in hard times.
B.B.: Yeah, growing up a black man in the Mississippi delta, I can relate to a lot of your psalms. One of my big hits was “Every Day I Have the Blues.”
David: You had the blues every day, and I had them all night long. Psalm 6 is about that. I was so depressed that I felt I was going to die, and I tried to convince God not to let me die by saying I could not praise the Lord from the grave. I did not mean that I didn’t believe in the afterlife– in fact, in Psalm 16, I said God would not abandon me in the graven, nor let his “Holy One” see decay. Hey, B.B., did you know that “Holy One” is Hasid in Hebrew, a play on words on my own name, David. You see, we Hebrews knew how to have fun with a pun, too. But it was still the blues. As I said in Psalm 6, verse 6, “I am worn out from weeping all night.”
B.B.: I like that one. It reminds me of a song by Slim Harpo. He sang, “You can cry, cry, baby, cry, cry all night long. But when you wake up in the morning, You’re gonna find your good man gone.”
David: Yeah, but the beautiful thing is that although I cried all night, God finally answered my prayer. I put that in near the end of Psalm 6: “The Lord has heard my plea for help; the Lord accepts my prayer.” B.B., let me ask you a question. Are black folks the only ones who sang the blues in your time? I mean, I’m a Hebrew, and like you said, many of my psalms were sad.
B.B.: I like to say that playing the blues and being black is like being black twice. But truth is, black folk ain’t the only ones singin’ the blues. In fact, lots of folk call country music the white man’s blues. In fact, one of your psalms reminds me of a country song.
David: Which one was that?
B.B.: Psalm 10.
David: The sequel to Psalm 9. Yes, I remember that one. It opens, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
B.B.: Yeah, there was a country song that said, “Where, O where, are you tonight? Why did you leave me here all alone?” Like I said, the white man’s blues.
David: But again the difference is that I ended my song with faith. Listen to verse 17: “You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted.” It reminds me of something I heard one of your American presidents say after he got shot and came up here. Abraham Lincoln said, “Often I am driven to my knees because there is nowhere else to go.”
B.B.: That’s cool. I like ole Abe. Hey, didn’t you say this Psalm 10 was the sequel to Psalm 9? How’s that?
David: Psalm 9 and 10 form an acrostic in Hebrew, with each stanza beginning with each of the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, so Psalm 10 finishes the acrostic that starts in Psalm 9. Psalm 9 praises the Lord with enthusiasm and even says, “For you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” So remember when you read Psalm 10, not only that it moves from doubt to faith, but that it is part of another psalm of faith.
B.B.: Man, I didn’t know that! It’s like you didn’t cut a single, you was putting out a theme album, dude! So when I think the thrill is gone, I just need to hang on to God, cause it ain’t gone after all.
David: That’s right, B.B.
B.B.: But sometimes folks don’t see that. They just drown in their tears.
David: I wrote a psalm about that, too. I begin Psalm 13 by crying to God for times, “How long, O Lord?”
B.B.: Yeah, makes me think of some blues dudes named K-Ci & Jojo. They had a song that said, “How long just I cry, how long must I try, to make happiness my friend?”
David: I had the answer to that in my Psalm. I said, “But I trust in Your unfailing love.” Again, the mood changes to confidence in God.
B.B.: How can you have so much trust in God? I mean, with King Saul chasin’ you all over the hills, trying to slit your throat?
David: Yeah, Saul had the army of Israel and I had a rough band of 600 men. In fact, one time I felt like God had completely forsaken me. That’s when I wrote the bluest of my blues– Psalm 22. I sang, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
B.B.: Hey, wait a minute, man! I know those words. Jesus said that on the cross! Dude, you wrote that?
David: Yeah, check it out. When Jesus said that on the cross, Jesus was singing the blues, B.B. — literally! The words Jesus quoted from the cross, and not only those words, but other parts of Psalm 22 remind us of the cross. Listen to these lyrics from that psalm:
“He trust in the Lord, let the Lord rescue Him…”
“They have pierced my hands and feet.”
“They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
All of those lines are quoted in the gospels when they talk about Jesus’ crucifixion. So you see, no matter how bad life seems, Jesus knows how it feels. He’s been there. He suffered for our sins on the cross, and experienced the very absence of God, because God cannot look upon sin, and Jesus became sin for us.
B.B.: That’s one of the reasons Jesus is my Main Man. I mean, if anybody had a reason to sing the blues, He did after what they did to Him on the cross.
David: But remember that Jesus didn’t stay on the cross. He arose from the grave! Jesus knew this when he sang Psalm 22. Even this psalm moves to hope, because near the end it says, “He has not hidden His face, but has listened to my cry for help.” B.B., remember how I explained to you that Psalm 10, a psalm that expresses a feeling of forsakenness, was preceded by Psalm 9, a psalm expressing God’s presence. In a similar way, Psalm 22 begins with “Why have you forsaken me?” but it is followed by my # 1 hit, Psalm 23, which talks about how God never forsakes us, even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death!
B.B.: Cool, man! You know, folks down in my home state of Mississippi have been singing the blues ever since Hurricane Katrina came down there and wiped things out. There’s this blues rock singer named Marc Broussard; he was trying to raise money for victims of the hurricane, and he used your Psalm 22. Here, I got the thing on my iPod. Listen to a little of it: (David puts on the headphones, and listens to a few bars of Bootleg to Benefit the Victims of Hurricane Katrina.)
David: Wow, brother, it sounds different on my harp.
B.B.: Same broken heart, though, isn’t it? In Broussard’s song, “My God,” he concludes with these words:
“My God, my God, heal this sin-stained soul. I give my life to you, take me and make me whole. Oh, You are the way, the truth and the life. Burn over me, Lord, send me Your might. Oh, I can do nothing without You. With Your strength this dark night I’ll get through.”
David: Yes, it is. Same broken heart. Same faith at the end. Speaking of a broken heart, I have to confess that I often sang the blues because of trouble I brought on myself.
B.B.: Yeah, I heard about you and your woman, Bathsheba. But I read Psalm 51 when you confessed it. Dude, you really laid your soul bare. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.
David: B.B., that wasn’t the only psalm I wrote after that. I also wrote Psalm 32 and Psalm 38. I was sick. Sick in my body. My bones felt brittle. I was so sick and disgusted with my own sin.
B.B.: Dude, there’s an indie rock band in Seattle, Washington, called Sorry the Band. They’re white boys, but they know how to sing the blues. I think they bootlegged Psalm 32 and Psalm 38, man.
David: Really? What do they call the song?
B.B. I think they just call the song “Shame.”
David: B.B., that’s the thing I wish people on earth could understand– that they can overcome their shame.They can beat the blues. Each of my psalms were soul therapy. They started with doubt, but ended with faith.
B.B.: I know it, man. That’s what Ray Charles and I were singing about on his last album before he died. We sang, “Lord, have mercy, please have mercy on me. Well, if I’ve done somebody wrong, Lord, please have mercy, if you please.”
David: That’s what the Lord did for me and did for you! When I did somebody wrong, I pleaded for mercy, and He gave it when I least deserved it. He told me that the Messiah would come through my descendants and He did! God sent Jesus the Messiah, and He died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and yours. Now by faith in Jesus, the Lord has mercy on all who sing the blues.
B.B.: Amen, brother!
Bob Rogers 