Enemies and hope
God, don’t shut me out;
don’t give me the silent treatment, O God.
Your enemies are out there whooping it up,
the God-haters are living it up... ~ Psalm 83:1-2 (MSG)
Zechariah said: With a solemn oath to our ancestor Abraham he promised to rescue us from our enemies and allow us to serve him without fear... all the days of our life. ~ Luke 1:73-75 (GNT)
KEY IDEA:
We expect God to rescue us from our enemies.
PRAYER:
Lord, thank you for being here for us. It does not make sense, then, that I get so upset over the enemies to goodness that have become so important in the news. Thre are so many haters out there living it up like they are in power, that I lose perspective and start to think that things have become hopeless. Help me to trust that you are still at work rescuing us from the enemies. I have faith that you are stronger than them. Amen.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2011 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase -- a freestyle biblical adaptation -- somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
