Lord God of History, we are living in the overlap between what is and what will be – and sometimes it feels like a contradiction, with the strong and mighty forces that are on the move around the world.
We watch and cry out as wars and the danger of world war increases, and authoritarian states wield remorseless control over their own and other nations.
Lord, we see legislation and many types of technologies shifting the world ever further from Your heart and even threatening creation itself, while multitudes continue to trust in themselves and to worship other gods.
We see delusion and intransigence rooted into so many political agendas around the world. It saddens You that so many people fall into a Christless eternity through acts of violence and warfare, because nations and leaders refuse to come into agreement or understanding with one another. But You have many ways to deal with evil, not just to violently overthrow each tyrant who rises to power, but often to turn the other cheek into woo and win by ways of loving kindness, even whilst calling it out. For the real battle is ultimately not against flesh and blood.
Give us grace to see things from each other's perspective, and to cross whatever bridges we can that lie between us in order to seek reconciliation. After all, have we not all at some point resisted a particular doctrine or person or policy, only to realise later that it was something that we can come to love and embrace? Deliver us from the desire to call down fire on that which offends our tastes and sensibilities.
Yahweh Mephalti, look with mercy on our riven lands. We pray for You to be at work challenging and dismantling many of these great strongholds of intransigence. Keep us from the total implosion our ways and actions so richly deserve. May common ground be found between opposing factions, and many be restored to each other and to You, not least in order to avoid the inevitable fate that awaits the truly intransigent of heart.
And still You call us to rejoice and look up, and to pray in spirit and look forward to the day that is coming when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that You are Lord - whether joyously out of love for You, or with fear and trembling because they recognise You for who You are, for You will return to the earth, Lord Jesus, and creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay, and be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. For You are Yahweh Mephalti, the King of Kings, and all glory belongs to You.
The magnificent opening movement of Vivaldi’s concerto for two trumpets, which is played for us here by Anthony Thompson and Kevin Ashman, accompanies an exploration of some of the apparent contradictions we so often feel between how things are now, and how they will be in God’s glorious future. He truly is the Lord of History – and in His sight there is no breech in the continuity between the way He leads us now and how He will do so later in Heaven. What an amazing thought it is that He delivers us from so much dross and so many dangers now in order that we may be with Him for eternity!
