God’s Presence in God’s Word (Chapter 12) (Wednesday in the fifth week of Lent)

PAUSE
As I enter prayer now, I pause to be still; to breathe slowly to recenter my scattered senses upon the presence of God.

(pause)
I pray Psalm 69: 16-18, repeating the words slowly, several times:
“Answer me, Lord, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Come near and rescue me.”

REFLECT
Bible: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? … A pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. The divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. (Ps. 22:1, 16-18)

Book passage: This psalm depicts Christ’s crucifixion so accurately that He himself quoted it from the cross. “Far from abandoning the Word of God when He felt abandoned by God, Jesus found the Scriptures more poignant and pertinent than ever … When God is silent, the galvanizing revelations that formerly came to our life through the Bible and through the ‘still small voice’ may seem little more than a distant memory, but this does not make them any less true. In fact, when God is silent, it becomes especially important to feed vicariously on the words He spoke back in the day when life was an easy conversation of two-way prayer; when the sermon seemed to be aimed directly at our heart, and the Bible really was the book we wanted by our bed.” (p. 181)

ASK
Ask myself: Is there a particular Bible verse that has been meaningful to me for a long time?

Ask the Lord: I spend a little time exploring each word of that favorite Bible verse now, turning it into a prayer.

YIELD
A fourteenth century prayer of trust from Thomas a Kempis:

0 Lord my God, do not be far from Me.
My God, have regard to help me.
I have many thoughts and great fears afflicting my soul. How will I pass through unhurt?
How will I break them to pieces?
This is my hope, my one only consolation,
to flee to you in every tribulation, to trust in you,
to call on you from my inmost heart,
and to wait patiently for your consolation.*

*Freely modified from Prayers of the Middle Ages, ed. J. Manning Potts (1954).

Amen