SATURDAY DEVOTIONS

At the beginning of this new day together I wanted us to focus our thoughts on God.  Giving Him His rightful place.  Acknowledging His presence in our midst.  Inviting Him to come and be our honoured guest, central to all we think and say and do.

Eugene Peterson is one of my favourite writers and over the years I have learned so much from him.  I love the Message Paraphrase of the Bible although I do struggle with some of the Americanisms in it.  However, what I love about this parpaphrase is that it helps make Scripture, personal, relational and draws me into it and often demands a response from me.

In his introduction to the book of Genesis Eugene Peterson helps us put things into their right perspective when he writes:

‘First, God.  God is the subject of life.  God is foundational for living.  If we don’t have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right.  Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends.  God at centre and circumference; God first and last; God, God, God.’

Eugene Peterson

If we were to turn to Psalm 90: 1-2 we would read:

‘God it seems you’ve been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, long before you brought earth itself to birth, from ‘once upon a time’ to ‘kingdom come’ – you are God’

Psalm 90: 1-2 MSG Para

I don’t know about you, but for me, the older I get, the more I realize the less I know. BUT, the older I get the more I realize God is faithful and just, an ever present God.  For most, if not all of us life at times turns out to be very different to what we had expected.  I had been a single Officer for twenty three years prior to me meeting Sven.  My officership had taken me to a number of places and different types of appointments.  For the most of the time I was very happy and fulfilled in my ministry as a single officer and by that stage I think had given up any thoughts of getting married.  Life was good and I was happy.  Then, completely out of the blue, I met Sven, fell in love, we had hoped and planned to be officers together, but then a week after our engagement Sven had a massive stroke and the result of which left him disabled.  Things turned out to be very different to what we had expected and now I find myself to be a single spouse officer and a fulltime carer.   However, through it all I can sincerely testify to the faithfulness of God.  He has been there with us and for us every single step of the way and I have found myself being able to say:  ‘For where I cannot see I’ll trust, for then I know Thou surely must be still my all in all.’  I know now more than ever God is faithful in His promise and His word to us.

I had hoped at this point we would be able to sing the chorus: ‘Faithful God’ together, however, we had not got the music and nobody seemed to know it, so we didn’t sing it but simply reflected on the words for a moment.

 ‘Faithful God, Faithful God,

All Sufficient One, I worship You.

Shalom my Peace,

My Strong Deliverer,

I lift You up,

Faithful God’

Chris Bowater

Having acknowledged something of the faithfulness of God, our response so often is to tell Him we love Him and so we did just that as we sang together:

I love You, Lord,

And I lift my voice to worship You,

O my soul rejoice.

Take joy, my King, in what You hear.

May it be a sweet, sweet sound in Your ear.

Laurie Klein

Which was followed by voluntary

Heart felt prayers …

I guess in many ways none of us really knew what to expect this weekend.  I certainly didn’t.  I thought I was coming to New York for the weekend.  I knew we were staying in a Salvation Army Conference Centre but for some reason I had imagined it to be hidden somewhere in the centre of New York, away from what I imagine is the hustle, bustle and noise of the city.  And in my mind I had visions of us accepting the invitation we find from God in Psalm 46: 10

‘Step out of the traffic!  Take a long, loving look at Me, your High God’

Psalm 46: 10 MSG Para

It wasn’t long before I realized we were to be staying nowhere near New York and I found myself in the beautiful countryside of the Pennsylvanian mountains.  Before we had even arrived here I felt I was beginning to respond to God’s invitation:  ‘To step out of the traffic and take a long, loving look at Him.’  As we drove through the gates into the grounds of this place immediately I sensed the presence of God and sensed it was a place that had been soaked in prayers down through the years.  No doubt some of those prayers were prayers of the people gathered in our group and this morning we had come to add even more prayers into the walls, the DNA of that place. 

All of us had come as wounded people.  All of us had come in need of God’s healing touch upon our hearts and lives for some reason or other.  And I believed the answer to the question General Albert Osborn’s song asks:  ‘When shall I come unto the healing waters?’  Was now …  I explained how I love the second verse of this song in particular and how there have been many significant moments in my life when I have really prayed these words:

Wash from my hands the dust of earthly striving;

Take from my mind the stress of secret fear;

Cleanse Thou the wounds from all but Thee far hidden.

And when the waters flow let my healing appear.

Sensitively and prayerfully we sang the song together.

When shall I come unto the healing waters?

Lifting my heart, I cry to Thee my prayer.

Spirit of peace, my Comforter and healer,

In whom my springs are found, let my soul meet Thee there.

From a hill I know,

Healing waters flow;

O rise, Immanuel’s tide,

And my soul overflow.

Wash from my hands the dust of earthly striving;

Take from my mind the stress of secret fear;

Cleanse Thou the wounds from all but Thee far hidden.

And when the waters flow let my healing appear.

Light, life and love are in that healing fountain,

All I require to cleanse me and restore.

Flow through my soul, redeem its desert places,

And make a garden there for the Lord I adore.

Albert Osborn

(SASB 647 – SATB 613)

I asked if the Pearl, the pianist could continue to play the music from this song quietly in the background as we made our silent, personal prayers to God asking Him to do in our hearts and lives what we needed Him to do this day.  As we did so I suggested if people would like me to I would go around the group with oil that I had bought in The Holy Land, simply make the sign of the cross on the palm of their hand and pray a blessing over them.  Personally I found this to be a very moving and humbling experience as I moved around the group and prayed:

‘May the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make His face to shine upon you

And be gracious unto you.

The Lord lift up the light of Hs countenance upon you

And give you peace.’

Personal Prayers …

This was followed by the singing of a verse of a song that was our joint prayer for us as individuals, for us as a group and for The Salvation Army.

O let me hear Thee speaking

In accents clear and still,

Above the storms of passion,

The murmurs of self-will.

O speak to reassure me,

To chasten or control;

O speak and make me listen,

Thou Guardian of my soul.

John Ernest Bode

(SASB 862 – SATB 246)

And our benediction was taken from the final verse of the Psalm we commenced our morning devotions with:

‘Let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,

confirming the work we do.

Oh yes.  Affirm the work we do!’

Psalm 90: 18 MSG Para

‘Let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,

confirming the work we do.

Oh yes.  Affirm the work we do, today!’

Amen!

Major Glad Ljungholm

Liverpool