Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Incline your ear, O my God, and hear. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name. We do not present our supplication before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies.”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, August 27, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
It’s not you, it’s us. In other words, God, can you fix everything because you’re amazing and wonderful and not because we deserve it? Because, like, we don’t.
It might seem like Daniel is appealing to God’s ego (which is silly, because I don’t think God has one.) But really, I think it’s about the fact that we don’t have to earn God’s mercy and grace. We just have it. We are worthy because God makes us worthy. God loves us as we are (though God wants us to be and do better, of course). God grieves with us the destruction of our cities, literal and metaphorical, and wants nothing more than to heal and make whole. God listens to our supplication and walks with us in our work to rebuild and restore.
Whether we have experienced external destruction through violence or natural disaster, or internal destruction through any number of traumas or breakdowns, God is right there experiencing it with us, and will move in and through us and others to right what is wrong.
Is there some struggle in my life I don’t believe I deserve help for? How can I ask for and receive help from God through others?
