Psalm 102:18-20 NLT

Let this be recorded for future generations, so that a people not yet born will praise the Lord. Tell them the Lord looked down from his heavenly sanctuary. He looked down to earth from heaven to hear the groans of the prisoners, to release those condemned to die.

Prisons come in many shapes and sizes. Not all are visible. Many live imprisoned by their feelings of shame arising from past behaviours, either their own or the actions of others directed at them

Life opens before each of us as we mature from childhood, through adolescence into adulthood. We discover there are decisions we must take that lie beyond the instruction of parent and teacher. Some of those decisions are fruitful and enriching, others debilitating and destructive, even to the point of death.

So as I enter the autumn of my life, I consider, what is my legacy? Have I built a life that through the exercise of self-interest has secured my well-being together with those I’ve chosen to love, but at the obvious expense of others? Have I attempted to mitigate that damage by doing some “good” arising from my Christian faith? Is my Christianity more than a sop to easing my own troubled conscience? Big questions and ones not lost on a rising generation looking at those who have lived more of life. The criticism increases in both scale and intensity, that my generation has enriched itself economically, secured itself politically and denigrated the planet extensively out of self-interest.

The gospel promises us eternity, yet mortality built upon self-interest starves that eternal seed. It is only as my self-interest is consumed within God’s best interest that I find the key to unlock every prison door. I can live free at last. Not knowing what tomorrow brings, I live in the now and reveal that confidence in God is sufficient for fullness of life.

QUESTION: Reread the third paragraph and consider the hard questions listed there.

PRAYER: Thank you, God, for creating me with free will. May I choose life, light, liberty and honesty today and each day.

Psalm 102:9-11 NLT

I eat ashes for food. My tears run down into my drink because of your anger and wrath. For you have picked me up and thrown me out. My life passes as swiftly as the evening shadows. I am withering away like grass.

Can there be any more devastating place than beyond the bounds of God’s love? There are times when it appears that God has abandoned us, despite our prayers for God’s presence. But like every relationship, moments of growth may well occur in the darkest places, when the relationship is most sorely tested.

Here in the Oratory both Jayne and I have come to love the garden. We have, with no previous gardening experience, created a space that reflects the diversity of God’s beauty through plants, shrubs and trees. We follow the seasons with excitement, from spring bulbs to burnished autumn colours. Remarkably many of these plants generate their life force, that brings such pleasure, hidden away deep beneath the soil for much of the year.

In pursuing God, it is never that God is absent, rather obscured. He is hidden in part through the reality of our situation, the intensity of our pain and the character of the temptation that distracts and draws us away from pursuing him. With God seemingly absent, the sweetest experiences become tasteless.

Like the psalmist we may weep from self-pity at our isolation and fear of abandonment as much as for loss of intimacy with God. Yet, God cannot gaze on sin. Pursuing God is not about complaining about his unreasonableness, but rather it is seeking to live in obedience with God’s revealed way.

Like a plant, there are many factors that can compromise our flourishing. As a disciple we are to pay close attention to nurturing the Godseed within, that in due time we might flower, fruit and reveal the reality of God within the garden of life. Like our garden, each plant flourishes for its season, then dies. Yet that plant’s contribution to the coherence of the garden is complete.

QUESTION: What phase within your season here on earth are you are living in?

PRAYER: Creator God, may I bring glory to you and fulfil all your plans and purposes here on earth, growing ever more like your dear Son, my Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalm 102:7-8 NLT

I lie awake, lonely as a solitary bird on the roof. My enemies taunt me day after day. They mock and curse me.

In recent years I’ve lain awake in the middle of the night more often. Sometimes there is an issue that worries me, especially when there are too many days in the month for my money. I’ve tried to not store up treasures on earth as Jesus taught (see Matthew 6:19-21), but for me at least, the consequences have sometimes been sleepless worry. I perceive these “night terrors” as the assault of the powers of darkness to break my resolve in pursuing Christ. In Christian terms they are a means to develop my resilience.

Hence, inner voices taunt me with my material failure. They berate me for failing to take proper care of my family, eat away at my personal self-esteem and can leave me exhausted. But this is the nature of warfare; discomforting, demanding and dangerous. Some people have domesticated the gospel so that it threatens no one and demands very little of us. Jesus declared it would demand everything of every one of its disciples (see Matthew 16:24-25).

As I sit with my daughter and chat through the decisions I’ve made through life, my heart for people and service is clear, my inability to provide financial security equally so. Yet, I now relish in the “taunts and curses” of my enemies for I have no other choice but to trust in God, even as I lie awake in the early hours. I do not fret, I pray, and as I pray I experience an overwhelming sense of God’s reality and presence, which takes none of the anxiety away which my mortal being carries, yet nourishes my soul to a degree I have no words to describe.

QUESTION: What worries cause you sleepless nights or anxiety?

PRAYER: I commit myself and my worries into your gracious care; come close to me again, Lord God. Please give me fresh strength and peace for this day.

Psalm 102:3-4 NLT

For my days disappear like smoke, and my bones burn like red-hot coals. My heart is sick, withered like grass, and I have lost my appetite.

One of the best investments we made in the Oratory is our lovely woodburner. As I bask in its warmth and the comfort drawn from watching wood slowly burn, I am aware of the smoke carried away, invisible, yet whose scent fills the air outside. That smoke is the product from the wood giving itself to warming our home. As my life is expended, I trust to the end of warming the hearts and nourishing the souls of others, even at the cost of my own existence. As the wood disappears, so is our service of God; we are to decrease that he might increase (see John 3:30, NKJV).

The smoke that would have risen from the sacrifices of old was incense in appeasement of a God of justice. Now, forever satisfied through the death of Jesus, there is no need for appeasement; instead, an invitation to lay down my life in voluntary slavery, my response to the selfless act of Jesus. I am the sacrifice; my time, my abilities, my resources.

The obstacles to voluntary slavery are many. The most obvious is the way contemporary society seems hell-bent on “taking” from life and satisfying our most selfish needs. To live as if others are of greater importance than myself is to challenge today’s deepest perception. If you don’t look out for yourself, who will?

However, it is impossible to out-give the Almighty. God has promised that this is the privilege of slavery. But sacrifice and service are unable to feed any need I have for recognition and affirmation. So sometimes I curl up before that woodburner, lick my wounds and make my complaint to God. But God reminds me, I chose to follow him. Self-pity and despondency are the enemies we all confront and contest. When they are in the ascendant our heart grows sick, for we break step with our conviction and calling.

QUESTION: Are you a voluntary slave to the will and purpose of God?

PRAYER: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; I renew my resolve and heart’s desire to serve and obey you as my God, my Lord and my Enabler.

Psalm 102:1-2 NLT

Lord, hear my prayer! Listen to my plea! Don’t turn away from me in my time of distress. Bend down to listen, and answer me quickly when I call to you.

Just because God hears our prayers doesn’t mean he answers according to the solution I carry within my own heart. I need to trust that God, in accepting my prayer, has both heard and answered. For the evidence of my eyes is no evidence of God’s response. My solution may be born of my own desire and not of God’s will.

I may feel despondent when the answer I crave in my prayer is not the one that I observe. It’s all too easy to berate God. For the good that I assume lies within my own solution can blind me to the will and way of God. This is tough, and easily lends itself to the many voices describing God as unfair. Yet in prayer I am agreeing to carry to God the needs of the world in which I live. I am also seeking to worship God, unseen save through the eye of faith. This same faith demands that I conclude that God hears my plea and indeed answers my prayer, for this is consistent with the character and promises of God.

Perhaps in prayer we face one of our greatest challenges. When instant responses are facilitated through the immediacy of modern technology, a more reflective way of life can quickly be lost. While I pray, then wait, I am both to ponder God and my own emotional turbulence in the light of the difference between the prayer request I’ve made and the evidence that I observe before my eyes.

What if the work of God in response to my plea is quietly realising itself in hidden and unfathomable ways? Does my faith stretch to the borders of the unseen and then beyond? For this is as much the realm of God as all that I can experience and know through my five senses.

QUESTION: Have prayers that have not been answered the way you hoped, been a source of pain?

PRAYER: My hope and confidence is in the Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth. I choose to keep approaching you in prayer.