Many people these days experience depression. It is not something new and should not be lightly dismissed. Some experience it more than others. Furthermore, it is not something that only people who have no religious faith experience. Great ones of the Bible, such as Elijah, King David, Jeremiah, and Paul the Apostle, all experienced it.

A cry from the heart. Psalms 42 & 43 which open Book II of the Psalms, reveal lessons we can learn from the experiences described in them. Far from home, in exile in the north, the psalm-writer asks three times: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me? (42:5, 11; 43:5).

In the opening line of Psalm 42 the poet reveals his desire: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? He longs for God’s presence. There are times when we too echo his feeling – times when prayer is difficult and talk of joy and peace is meaningless.

But notice what underlies these occasions – feelings, emotions, depression. Because we are psychosomatic beings, a disturbance in our body chemistry which may be caused by external physical factors, can affect our emotional balance as well as our spiritual awareness.

We can see what the writer is doing: he is telling us that it’s important we view our feelings and experiences through the lens of the wisdom of our faith. If we have a migraine we don’t shout, ‘Alleluia’. And so, if we’re suffering depression, we’re not going to feel close to God. But that shouldn’t prevent us from asking questions. Indeed, we should understand that there’s all the difference between feeling forsaken by God and being forsaken by him.

Now, that said, depression can be a result of spiritual factors. If, for example, we are burdened with guilt about something we’ve done, we may feel God is remote. There may also be times when we experience a spiritual attack from opposing forces. However, in most instances what might be called spiritual depression is in fact a natural depression impacting a spiritually minded person. This seems to be what the writer is experiencing.

And so he records his experiences. He speaks of his spiritual isolation: My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?” (42:3) The verbal barbs went home. It’s easy to trust God in the comfort and security of God’s people. But now he was alone, without emotional support or personal encouragement. Situations like this can depress us for we are social creatures.

Furthermore, he reveals his physical isolation: These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

A high point of the writer’s life had been religious festivals. He is homesick as he remembers them. Anyone who has moved to a new city or a new country knows how real this can be. It’s enough to make anyone depressed.

But again, his experience was not necessarily spiritual depression. Yes, he felt isolated from God, but that didn’t mean there was an underlying spiritual cause. His issue wasn’t sin or lack of faith. It was the consequence of his situation.

His depression so disturbed him that he burst into uncontrollable tears: My tears have been my food day and night,..(42:3) Three times he also tells us that he was downcast. He felt flat. He felt no spark of enthusiasm or energy. Depressed people often feel exhausted.

He also says three times that he is disturbed: ‘Why are you so disturbed within me, o my soul?’ We sense his anxious sighs and groans. And in verse 7 he tells us that he feels overwhelmed: Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your waterfalls (or, cataracts); all your waves and your billows have gone over me.

Socially and physically alone, the writer was emotionally distraught. He was flat emotionally, anxious, and overwhelmed. Which led to something else: spiritual rejection. In verse 9 he says: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” Torn with a sense of loss, he is like someone grieving the loss of a loved one. He feels spiritually bereft, devastated, and heartbroken.

But this writer is a believer. The dominant person in his life is God. We recall his opening line: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. The poet feels spiritually depressed, not because he was spiritually negligent but because of his situation as one of God’s people. ‘I believe’ he is saying, ‘Why should I feel like I do? Why am I so inwardly disturbed? What’s happened to me? What’s happened to my faith?’

We may think this man is spiritually weak but there’s no hint of this in the psalm. In fact, the way he wrestles with his depression testifies to the reality of his faith and to his perseverance.

Psalms 42 and 43 are most important for they provide lessons for us when we are in the depths of despair. What was the writer’s response? We’ll consider this next Wednesday.

A prayer. Almighty God, we commend to your fatherly goodness all who are in any way afflicted or distressed, especially those who are known to us. May it please you to comfort and relieve them according to their needs, giving them patience in their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. All this we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Twenty-four years ago Judith and I were living three short blocks south of the Twin Towers in Downtown Manhattan. We had awakened on Tuesday morning, September 11 to clear blue skies and the sparkling waters of New York Harbor. But it was not to last.

We felt the shock in our building when the first tower was hit from the north. We heard the scream of the second jet flying low overhead and what sounded like a sonic boom when the south tower was hit. We experienced the shaking of our apartment building, similar to that of an earthquake, and the midnight darkness when the first tower collapsed. We saw the dust, the ash and the paper on the streets and felt the eerie silence when we were later able to leave our building. Lower Manhattan was like a moonscape. A great evil occurred that day.

Twenty-four years on it is easy to put aside the hideous, evil acts that cut short the lives of people going about their daily affairs. It’s easy to forget that commercial airliners were used as missiles to crash into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. A further flight intended for more destruction was thwarted by the selfless heroic efforts of passengers. People on that flight prayed the Lord’s Prayer as the plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Over three thousand men and women died that day.

In his address to the nation that evening, George W. Bush, then President, called for prayers for all who had lost loved ones. He continued: And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.”

In the Wall Street Bible talks I was giving at the time, I spoke on Psalm 46 which begins: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Creation in turmoil. It can never be said that the Bible knows nothing about catastrophic events – and not least human evil and its devastating effects on this world. Indeed, the Psalm introduces a theme we overlook today – namely, the ultimate dissolution of the present world order by its Creator. God continues his work even in the midst of the chaos. God’s supremacy and presence with his people is never thwarted. He alone is our security and strength.

The larger biblical epic records the intrusion of evil into God’s good creation in Genesis chapter 3. God didn’t create evil, but because he didn’t make us robots, he allowed it. However, as the biblical narrative unfolds, we become aware of the reality and the depth of wickedness.

As a side note, if we insist we’re here by chance and are nothing but atoms in an ordered cohesion bumping around in time and space, evil and suffering have no meaning for there is no transcendental moral compass.

The opening lines of Psalm 46 speak of the unchanging God who is our refuge and strength. In him alone we find a secure shelter and the power within to address any situation. Indeed, verses 2 and 3 exhort us not to fear, even if the world around us is undone, for God remains supreme over every facet of his creation – the earth, the mountains, and the seas.

Humanity in turmoil. Psalm 46 moves from the upheaval of the material world to human turmoil. There is a river, whose streams make glad the city of God….God is the midst of the city; it will not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.

Derek Kidner comments that ‘the city of God is one of the great themes of the Old Testament … God’s choice of Zion, or Jerusalem, had been as striking as his choice of David, and the wonder of it keeps breaking through’ (Kidner, Psalms, Vol.1, p.175). We also find glimpses anticipating the New Testament vision of the heavenly Jerusalem as the community of God’s people rather than as a place (Ps.48:2).

Verse 6 speaks of the instability of evil and human tumult: The nations are in uproar, the kingdoms totter… However, God has the last word for when he utters his voice, the earth melts. Verse 7 is so reassuring: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

The Lord of hosts points to the mighty armies of heaven to which Jesus alluded when he was arrested (Matthew 26:53). Refuge, a different to word to verse 1, speaks of an ‘inaccessible height’ which the New English Bible translates as our high stronghold.

Be still! Verses 8 and 9 are an invitation to catch the vision of God’s ultimate intention – to make wars to cease to the end of the earth. It is a picture of the perfect peace that will follow on the other side of God’s judgement – the accounting that precedes the perfect righteousness of the new heaven and the new earth (2 Peter 3:12f).

The command “Be still” is not so much a word of comfort to God’s people under duress but a command to every nation. Jesus’s word to the turbulent winds and waters, “Peace. Be still” display the power of God’s Word. Mind-bending though the idea is, at God’s command the nations will be called to order, confronted by God’s supreme and glorious power: “Know that I am God! I will be exalted among the nations … and in the earth” (46:10).

In the closing words, the confidence in God in verse 1 returns with greater power: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge – our high stronghold! The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ confirm the truth and trustworthiness of these words.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 twenty-four years ago, churches were filled as many looked for comfort and hope. Some turned to the risen Lord Jesus Christ for the first time.

As we reflect on these events twenty-four years on, will you join with me in praying for the nations, especially that God might open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears, turning hard hearts towards their true home in Christ?

It’s worth noting the words of Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French mathematician, physicist and philosopher: “Men and women despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good people wish it were true, and then show them that it is”.

Let me also encourage you to purchase copies of my book, The Jesus Story: Seven Signs – one to refresh your own faith in Christ as well as copies to pass on to others. Use the link in the banner below if you are in the US. If you are outside the US copies can be purchased through Amazon.

Prayer. We commend to your fatherly care, merciful God, all those who in this passing world are in any kind of trouble, sorrow, sickness, anxiety or need, especially we pray for…  Give them patience and confidence in your goodness, and in your mercy provide their every need. Father, hear our prayer, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We praise your name for all your servants in whose life and death Christ has been honored. Grant that, encouraged by the good examples of their lives, we may run the race that is set before us, and with them share the fullness of joy at your right hand; through Christ who is the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Studies reveal that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. Not that we should be surprised. Jesus warned his followers that this would be their experience because of their association with him. “If the world hates you”, Jesus says, “know that it has hated me before it hated you …” (John 15:18).

The theme of the persecution of God’s people is not new. Psalm 2, written some 1,000 years before, begins: Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

Why introduces the first of four voices and the underlying theme. The plot is a war between humanity and their creator. Significantly, plot in verse 1 is the same word used in the original language as the word translated meditate in Psalm 1, verse 2. Whereas all who are truly blessed and happy delight to meditate on God’s Word, the nations and peoples mutter and murmur in a negative voice.

The psalm continues by identifying the leaders of this muttering: The kings of the earth set themselves, and their rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his anointed saying, “Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us” (Ps 2:2-3).

In identifying who the kings and rulers oppose, two further voices are identified – the Lord God (Ps 2:4-6) and his anointed one, Messiah (Ps 2:7-9).

Significantly, the prophet Hosea, chapter 11, verse 4 reveals God’s words about his relationship with his people and his care of them: I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

And the Acts of the Apostles records the prayer of God’s people when Peter and John were released by the Jewish Council for preaching that Jesus, raised from the dead, is the Messiah. Psalm 2 is referenced in Acts as a psalm of David (even though the Psalm is not titled as such) and understood it as a prediction of Jesus’s crucifixion: Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? (Acts 4:25f).

Specifically, the Jerusalem believers understood that Psalm 2 pointed to the actions of Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Gentile and Jewish leaders who had called for the crucifixion of God’s anointed one (Messiah). They viewed it as an essential part of God’s hidden, sovereign plan (Acts 4:28f). As Derek Kidner observes, ‘Every grand alliance against heaven will show, in time, this double pattern’ (D. Kidner, Psalms, IVP).

Verses 4 through 6 reveal God’s response: He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.

God’s laughter is not mocking, but rather laughter at the human arrogance that denies the existence of the Lord, sovereign over his creation. As Psalm 19 reveals, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the earth proclaims his handiwork …

Paul the Apostle echoes Psalm 2:5 and Psalm 19 when he writes: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him… (Romans 1:21a-23).

And in First Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 20 we read: Where is the one who is wise? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

To return to Psalm 2, God speaks to us all when he says: “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill” (Ps 2:6). The perpendicular pronoun “I” is emphatic. Despite the view of many, especially in the western world today, God is not mocked. As he promised King David, a descendant of his (David’s) will one day be enthroned and be seen by all. God and his king will have the final word – and the last laugh.

Which introduces the third voice of the psalm – the voice of the king: I will tell the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you (Ps 2:7).

In Second Samuel chapter 7, verses 12 following, Nathan the prophet reveals God’s promise to David as he speaks about a descendant of David: … I will raise up your offspring after you, … and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.

The relationship between the second and third speakers of the psalm permeate the New Testament. God says to Jesus at his baptism: “You are my Son, the Beloved” (Luke 3:22) and to Peter, James and John at Jesus’s transfiguration: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35) Furthermore, Paul the Apostle in his address at Antioch in Pisidia, linked the title of Jesus as God’s Son with his resurrection from the dead (Acts 13:32-34).

The theme of the rule of God’s king develops: Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron,  and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2:8-9).

Matthew records Jesus’s mandate to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, … (28:18f). And although the rule of Christ Jesus is hidden for the present, his mandate to make disciples of the nations, continues through the ages for all his people. Furthermore, in the context of Psalm 2 we can paraphrase break them as shepherd them, and a rod of iron as scepter, indicating his rule is as a shepherd king, guiding and disciplining with his royal scepter.

Which leads to the warning to God’s enemies in Psalm 2, verses 10 through 12: Now therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, live in trembling, paying true homage or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

God’s anger is not fickle, but just. It is balanced by the reality that he is also merciful and slow to anger – as we read, for example, in Isaiah chapter 63, verse 9: In his love and in his pity he redeemed them (his people)…

The fourth voice is in the last line of the psalm: Happy are all who take refuge in him (2:12c). Happy or blessed brings Psalms 1 and 2 together.

Dr. Andrew Shead (Moore College, Sydney) comments, ‘… this refuge-seeker is none other than the wise reader who delights in God’s instruction. Most of the psalms that follow are told from the perspective of this character as he addresses God in trust and thanksgiving, and comes to God for refuge’.

We shouldn’t be surprised when our faith in Christ Jesus is mocked. Rather, as Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44).

Prayer. Almighty God, the protector of all who put their trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply your mercy upon us, so that with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal: grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Eternal God, from whom all holy desires, all good purposes, and all just works proceed: give to your servants that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments, and that free from the fear of our enemies we may pass our time in trust and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Have you ever been resentful of people whose lives seem successful? They’ve achieved recognition; they have beautiful children, and they enjoy material riches. The very thought of them strips any sense of happiness from you.

Now there’s nothing wrong with being successful, having a great family or having money. The question is how do we value them? Do they represent what life is about or is there more to life?

Today we come to a second Reflection on Psalm 1. The Psalm is important for it lays the foundation for the whole Book of Psalms. As it progresses it identifies our two life-choices – a road to nowhere, or a path to life.

Consider verse 3. The imagery is vivid as it speaks of the truly blessed or happy people. They are like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all it does it prospers.

Like a tree, truly happy people draw upon life-giving water, growing slowly, steadily, surely, putting roots deeper and deeper into the source of life. Their source of water is God’s word. And just as a well-rooted tree develops its own particular fruit in the appropriate season, so they develop their own distinctive personality and quality of life.

And significantly, because this tree is well-rooted, its leaf doesn’t wither in the crippling conditions of drought. Unlike reeds in dried-up river beds or grass in parched earth, trees because of their deep-rooting system are more able to reach what little moisture there is. So in the tough times of life, the faith of God’s people is not likely to shrivel up.

Yes, our faith will be tested, but in the same way a deeply rooted tree in drought conditions is stimulated to push down even deeper in search of moisture, so too are we are stirred to dig deeper into God’s word; to rely more and more upon him; to be more focussed on putting our life in his hands. This results in bearing the fruit of love – love for God, love for others. We yearn for this. We long for the water of life, but in our natural state we look in the wrong places.

Two thousand years ago a woman at a well in Samaria longed for happiness but it had eluded her. Thinking that love and marriage was the answer, she had been married five times. And as Jesus observed in his conversation with her in John chapter 4, she was now living with a sixth man. But each time she made the same mistake. Her life was a mess. She felt insecure, lonely, and dissatisfied.

Telling her that he, Jesus, offered living waters which spring into eternal life, he said that true believers worshipped the Father in spirit and in truth. ‘A new age is dawning,’ he said, ‘when access to God is no longer tied to any one race or nation.’ The key is to know Christ and, in turn to make him known.

Consider what Psalm 1 tells us happens to a world that fails to turn to God and put its trust in him. In verse 4 we read: The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Chaff is the epitome of what is rootless and weightless: it has no substance. It’s useless. We can feel the force of the imagery – the action of winnowing, tossing the harvested grain into the air so that the light, useless chaff will be carried off by the wind, while the heavy grain falls to the ground.

Other psalms point out that all too often it is the godless rather than the godly who seem to succeed in life. But those same psalms also come to the same conclusion as this psalm. There will come a Day when men and women of straw together with their works of straw will be revealed.

Verse 6 looks ahead to this: Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

If this world is to make any sense at all, there must be a final judgement. If there is any morality, there must come a time when everyone is called to account. One of the points the Bible insists upon is that there will be such a time. And the psalmist wants us to know that on that day, those who have ignored God, who turned their backs on the perfect pattern of life he has shown us, or who have simply rejected him, will not have a leg to stand on.

Are you looking for meaning and lasting joy in life? Psalm 1 tells us how we can find it. We won’t find it by following our own inclinations nor by following our passions. And, with the incarnation of the Son of God, we certainly won’t find it by dismissing Jesus Christ.

We don’t know what life holds. One thing we do know is this. Our world is not getting any better. The western world is more and more wrecking itself on the rocks of unadulterated selfishness. People want happiness but insist upon looking in all the wrong places.

God tells us where we can find it. In responding to him, in learning from him and leaning on him; in living lives shaped by his perfect pattern. Then and only then will we begin to find true happiness.

So, if we want to find true happiness, it’s worth planning a lifestyle that includes the daily reading of the Bible; developing a pattern of prayer, so we can plunge into the springs of God’s living water. The best way to begin is to not procrastinate. If you are not regularly reading the Bible, plan to start today.

A prayer. Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, so that, encouraged and supported by your holy Word, we may embrace and always hold fast the joyful hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Happiness is something we long for. But how can we achieve it? It’s elusive: one moment we can be feeling happy, but the next we’re not. Like moonlight it has slipped through our fingers.

In fact ‘happiness’ can’t be a goal in the strict sense of the word. For a goal is something that is within our power to achieve. Happiness isn’t like that. There are too many variables outside our control.

We can think that being successful, having a good family and friends, material assets and comfort, will make us happy. But it doesn’t. There will always be others more successful. And behind the best of families there is often unresolved pain or hurt; those with wealth often find they’re not satisfied – they want more, or they worry about the security of all they have. Despite experiencing much that is good in life we don’t always feel that overwhelming sense of real happiness and joy.

Psalm 1 helps us. Blessed is the one … we read. Blessed means ‘happy’. The idea is echoed twenty-six times in the Psalms. It is also the word Jesus used in what are known as the Beatitudes in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12).

In Psalm 1 verses 1 through 3 we read: Happy is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

We all have a real thirst, a longing for something that will satisfy us deeply. The thirst is not wrong. It is part of our complex make-up that makes us human. Our problem is that we look in the wrong places to satisfy it. The prophet Jeremiah records God’s words: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water,…” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Verse 1 of the Psalm challenges us to consider our world-view. Our natural inclination is to adopt a world-view that appeals to our sense of self-sufficiency. We like the music emanating from the temples of materialism or humanism that puts us in control of our lives and our destiny.

As we continue down this path, we indulge in behaviour that appeals to our feelings, even though it means flouting God’s directions and good purposes. And so we find ourselves marching in step with the crowds who live as though there is no God and no objective moral order. In turn we join the cynics who mock Christianity. We become part of a silent majority, failing to speak up for what we believe because we’re afraid. We sit in the seat of scoffers.

What then is the path to real happiness? Verse 2 tells us: their delight is in the law of the Lord; and on his law they meditate day and night.

The negatives of verse 1 are now contrasted in verse 2. As others have observed, they show us we have a choice. Like Adam and Eve in the original garden, God respects the gift of choice he has given us. It’s one of the features that makes us human. We are not puppets on a string in a mechanistic universe. We can choose.

Verse 2 provides the key that unlocks our true humanity: Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. We need something to transform us from deep within. The law of the Lord which stands against the counsel of the wicked is a reference to God’s instruction.

Interestingly the word meditate here is the same word plot Psalm 2:1. What goes on within our hearts and minds becomes evident in our words and actions. In Psalm 2:1 the plotting is the intention of darkness that leads to evil. In Psalm 1 meditating on God’s Word, his self-disclosure, leads to Godly growth and behaviour.

People who are blessed meditate on God’s Word – God’s special self-disclosure. Here is the key to real and lasting happiness. It foreshadows Jesus’s reference to living waters that he promised to the woman at the well in Samaria. These ‘waters’ are bound up in knowing him.

Sometimes we think that meditation is something carried out by the super-spiritual – people who are etched into stained-glass windows, people who have their heads in heaven but who are no earthly use. This is not so. The words here echo God’s command to Joshua – God’s man of action who needed just as much as anyone else to think hard about the will of God if he wanted to achieve anything worthwhile.

Real happiness is found in our determination to be instructed and counselled by God himself. This isn’t easy. It will mean being prepared to look inside ourselves and consider why we say the things we sometimes do, why we think and behave the way we do, and then be willing to change. This can be tough. It means being honest with ourselves before God. It can take time.

For to meditate on God’s teaching involves letting the weight of God’s Word press upon our hearts and minds, and our life-style.

Where then do we find true happiness? Not swimming in the shallows of faith, but plunging into the mind of God found in the living waters of his Word.

A prayer. Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth so that they may return into the way of righteousness: grant to all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s service so that we may renounce those things that are contrary to our profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to it; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

What do you think of prayer? Do you pray regularly? And if you do, do you pray with confidence? Can God, whom we call ‘Father’, be trusted to hear our prayers and answer them?

In Luke chapter 11, verses 9 and 10, Jesus says: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

On either side of these words Jesus answers two questions we might have about prayer: Does God always listen to us? Does he always have our very best interests at heart? His answer is found in two metaphors that sit on either side of his words in verses 9 and 10.

His answer to our first question is in a parable sometimes called, ‘The Friend at Midnight’ (11:5-8). The parable has an underlying, unspoken question, ‘Can you imagine…?’ ‘Can you imagine a man talking like this to a friend in need?’ Jesus is asking.

The key to the parable is found in the words in verse 8, translated, the man’s boldness. Let me suggest this is one place where most English translations are unhelpful, for they follow a translation that only dates back to the 12th century.

In recent times the late Dr. Kenneth Bailey brought fresh insights to the parables from his work on Middle-Eastern culture. In the original text the noun, man’s does not appear; rather the personal pronoun his is found. Furthermore, in the light of the research by Dr. Bailey, a better translation of boldness is sense of shame. The flow of the syntax, the narrative impact of the story has the sleeper in bed as the focus – not the man knocking on the door. It is a parable about God and the issue of God’s honour, his name. It is not a parable about the man’s persistence. Persistence is a theme taken up in a parable in Luke chapter 18.

In the parable of the friend at midnight God is represented as the one who is in bed, shut in for the night. The unwritten laws of mid-eastern hospitality, which are an important sub-text of the parable, required a man to get up and help his neighbour in need. If he didn’t he would be shamed and he would bring dishonour to the whole community. “Can you imagine,’ Jesus asks, ‘anyone saying, ‘Don’t disturb me?’ to a neighbour in need, even at midnight?

So it is with God.  His very nature demands that he get up and act. Otherwise, he will bring shame to his name. It’s a matter of God’s honour and integrity. He can be trusted to hear our requests, no matter how small, no matter what time of day or night.

‘That’s so encouraging’, you may say: ‘But what about the next question? Will God give me good things? Can he be trusted at that level or is he fickle?’

In verses 11 and 12 Jesus adopts two metaphors to move from the lesser to the greater: the most violent thief can be kind to his son and the most mercenary-minded father can be generous to his daughter. ‘Do you think God is any less open-handed?’ Jesus asks.

We need to think about this. To trust God is also to rely on his fatherly wisdom. A good and loving father will give good gifts, but he’ll use his own discretion as to how he will act.

Jesus assures us that God will not exploit our prayer or act in some malicious way. In the model prayer he gave to his disciples (11:2-4), he tells us to call God, “Father”. We need to be assured of this when we pray. Furthermore, we must realise that we are not wise enough, nor good enough, to get everything we request from someone who is the all- powerful, creator, lord of the universe.

Jesus’ direction in the model prayer to say, “Your will be done”, is not fatalism. These words are necessary to any conversation with an all-loving and all-powerful Father.

People who find it difficult to grasp the idea of a good and loving father are often those who have had an unhappy or abusive childhood. Jesus is saying that we can trust our heavenly father. Even if you have not had a good experience of an earthly father, you can nevertheless trust in the goodness of your father in heaven. We need not fear that he will twist our words.

He may not give us everything we want; he may delay making any response; but like any good and loving father he does not want to spoil us with over-indulgence. He may also want to test our seriousness in prayer and the quality of our relationship with him.

Sometimes God does say, ‘No’, as he did when Paul asked him to remove the thorn which was troubling him. He also said ‘No’ to Jesus when he begged that the cup of suffering might be taken away. When God says, ‘No, it’s because his plans are bigger than ours.

When we begin a prayer relationship with God the Father, we open the door to untold blessings. That’s why Jesus is speaking with such unqualified confidence when he promises: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you”.

Prayer is a precious privilege. As Blaise Pascal, the 17th C French mathematician, chemist and philosopher observed, ‘God has organised the government of the universe so that our prayer, our talking with him, has meaning. It brings us into the very presence of the God who is at the heart of the universe’. Yet so often our prayer life is dead. Why don’t we pray more consistently and more confidently?

And for anyone who is still asking questions about the faith and is finding it hard to make a commitment to the Lord Jesus, his words are for you as well: ‘Ask, Seek, Knock’. If you want faith, ask for it. If you seek, you will find. If you really are knocking on God’s door, the door will be opened.

God is the Father who loves to give. We can take Jesus at his word. ‘Will God not give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?” Jesus asks.

Why does he speak about the Holy Spirit here? He is anticipating the great gift of his coming to us through his Spirit: the Spirit will open our minds to hear the voice of God through the Word of God; the Spirit will open our hearts to God and enable us to call God, ‘Father’ – as we read in Romans, chapter 8, verse 15. The Spirit will open our lives to God and empower us to trust God.

Prayer. Let your merciful ears, Lord God, be open to the prayers of your people, and so that we may obtain our petitions, direct us to ask such things as will please you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

© John G. Mason

With the current geo-political upheavals many fear what the future holds. The uncertainty today is exacerbated by the angry divisions within societies. Vindictiveness has replaced respectful and serious conversation. And we can feel utterly powerless when it comes to talking about our faith.

In Perelandra or Voyage to Venus, the second in CS Lewis’ science-fiction trilogy, Ransom, the main character, feels powerless in confronting an evil force at work on the untainted planet Venus. The crafty subtle evil power reflects the temptations in Genesis chapter 3. Despite being a learned scholar in philology, Ransom constantly finds himself defeated in his arguments. What can he do?

This raises an important question for us, for today people have little knowledge of the Jesus of the Gospels. So subtle and persistent has been the attack on Christianity, they are not looking to the Christian faith for answers about life. Is it time for us to review our approach?

Come with me to a parable Jesus told – the parable of the sower. It begins in Luke chapter 8, verse 4. When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’… ‘Now the parable is this,’ Jesus explained: ‘The seed is the word of God.’

People travelled from near and far to see Jesus. Expectations were rising. It would have been a great time for him to call them to join him in a march on Jerusalem to set Israel free from Rome. But that was not God’s way.

We need to focus on the key to the parable: “…The seed is the word of God” (verse 11).

Causes and revolutions are staged by various means. Last century Marxists brought in Communism at the end of a gun. This century began, as we are reminded on 9/11 each year, with Islamist extremists trying to de-stabilise and destroy through terrorism. In Jesus’s day zealots tried to revive Jewish independence through guerrilla warfare.

But these are not Jesus’s methods. The picture he paints in these verses is of a farmer quietly sowing seed. The Word of God he is saying, has within its DNA the capacity to change people’s lives for good. At first the transformation is hidden but there comes a day when the change is obvious.

Churches today have often lost confidence in the power of God’s Word to change lives. So, many churches focus on the sacraments, and others on social justice. But to make these things the priority is to lose sight of the way God works. God’s Word is the key that unlocks the door into God’s kingdom and therefore to life.

In Second Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17 we read: All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the people of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

The Scriptures, as the Word of God, give us exclusive information about salvation. They don’t contain exhaustive truth, but what they do give us is sufficient for restoring our relationship with God and for living as God’s people.

In the larger context of Second Timothy chapter 3, Paul reminds us we live in a world that prefers to find or invent its own religion. He tells us that our only real hope for life and meaning is found in God’s unique self-revelation. Human resources won’t provide deep and satisfying answers. Our sure hope is in dependence on the resources of the living God.

To return to the parable in Luke chapter 8, Jesus warns us that the results of sowing the seed of God’s Word aren’t uniform. Some of the crop grows well, some poorly, some hardly at all. The results are not so much caused by bad sowing but rather because of some failure in the ground. We could call this parable the parable of the four soils.

One group, having heard God’s Word, hardened their hearts through the silent, crafty work of the power of evil. A second group received God’s Word with joy, but in times of testing fell away; they had liked the preacher but there was no true repentance, no real change in their lives. A third group also heard God’s Word but had not counted the cost of commitment; they were not convicted of their sin and their need to turn to Christ in repentance; they had come as customers to buy, not as disciples to surrender.

But Jesus also speaks of a fourth group. They are true followers of Christ who hold fast to God’s Word with an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance. Perseverance in godly living is the sign of God’s grace at work. A real lesson here is the encouragement we can experience in the ministry of disciple-making and outreach.

Jesus’s references to birds, stones, and thorns could easily demoralize us. But he is saying, ‘Don’t be put off. Be realistic, yes. But the ministry of God’s Word will always have its successes, and what success that will be!’ So let’s be encouraged. Let’s never forget Jesus’s words: “I will build my church, and nothing will prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

And most of all, remember the key to ministry is letting God’s Word do its work.

To assist you in your own faith and equip you with a small book to pass on to others who don’t know what to believe, I have written The Jesus Story: Seven Signs that focus on the miracles of John’s Gospel. You can access it through the banner below if you are in the US, or through Amazon anywhere else in the world.

A prayer.  Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that, encouraged and supported by your holy Word, we may embrace and always hold fast the joyful hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Note: I have adapted material here from my book, Luke: An Unexpected God (2nd Edition, Aquila: 2019)