Both Kavanaughs are active Catholics and often refer to their faith.
Pinging. Saw you refer to this in the America Vigil thread.
I like this one better:
Psalm 64
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 Hear me, my God, as I voice my complaint;
protect my life from the threat of the enemy.
2 Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from the plots of evildoers.
3 They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim cruel words like deadly arrows.
4 They shoot from ambush at the innocent;
they shoot suddenly, without fear.
5 They encourage each other in evil plans,
they talk about hiding their snares;
they say, “Who will see it[b]?”
6 They plot injustice and say,
“We have devised a perfect plan!”
Surely the human mind and heart are cunning.
7 But God will shoot them with his arrows;
they will suddenly be struck down.
8 He will turn their own tongues against them
and bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
9 All people will fear;
they will proclaim the works of God
and ponder what he has done.
10 The righteous will rejoice in the Lord
and take refuge in him;
all the upright in heart will glory in him!
I’ve been praying for Judge Kavanaugh and his family since he was nominated. I will keep praying for them as long as it takes.
Amen. Thank you for posting this.
By multiple accounts, Mrs K is a very nice person and a devoted wife and mother. I can’t remember anything in politics (not even the despicable conduct of the Clintons) that has made me angrier than the way the Kavanaugh family has been treated over the past few weeks. I don’t know them, have never met any of them, but I feel personally outraged by what has been done to them. There was an article within the last couple days that proposed the idea that the Left is very much doing this to send a message and flex its muscles: if they can demonize and destroy the squeaky clean, mainstream, inoffensive Kavanaughs, then they can do it to anyone.
Amen
We can see spiritual warfare by the wicked in government in what is going on against the Kavanaugh family. We need to pray for God’s protection of the Kavanaughs and our country from these evil people.
There is a verse from Genesis repeated from HipnChips that really resonates with the Kavanaugh trauma:
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
— Genesis 50:20
Time 11:14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMGg6QiLIyk&t=988s
God’s will never take you where His love cannot protect you. Or something like that.
a lady reminded us at church yesterday about this request...
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.
Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
Psalm 40:1-17
God the Father of Mercy: we hold the Kavanaugh family up to you.
May they be protected as the apple of your eye. May no weapon formed against them prosper. May Brett Kavanaugh be swiftly confirmed as Supreme Court Judge.
May Kavanaugh’s human adversaries be rebuked and falter. May they repent and come to believe in your Son. May we all be healed and sing with joy together at the Last Day.
May the fallen angels that shriek and howl for the destruction of all good be thrust into hell.
+ We ask these things in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ +
Amen.
Thanks so much for posting this!
Here’s an article from desiringgod.org about the main ingredient in powerful and effective prayer that I thought was good.
Article by Jonathan Parnell
Pastor, Minneapolis, Minnesota
It’s tragic how easily we can miss the main ingredient in effective prayer.
In our sin, we’ve been rewired to focus on us — on the steps we should take for our prayers to be heard. We have this bent toward believing that every result is born from method. If something works for somebody, we want to know what that somebody is doing.
We’ve developed the assumption that if we can just strip it all down to a reproducible process to put into action, then the results will multiply. While this applies to certain things, it doesn’t apply to prayer — or at least that’s not the vision the apostle James gives us. The main ingredient in effective prayer is emphatically not us.
Often Misunderstood
Many of us find James 5:16 to be a familiar verse: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” — which is also translated, as an ESV footnote spells out, “The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power.”
“We pray as ordinary people who have an extraordinary God.”
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This is one of those coffee-mug verses. It’s commonly understood like this: Be righteous, and your prayers will work. It’s what I used to think. But that’s the skim-milk meaning. It’s what happens when we fly by the text without questions. Our broken bent is to make the burden of this passage something to do with us. We simply settle to think that, if we want our prayers to be effective, then we need to be righteous.
But this reading doesn’t hold up.
Reading in Context
First, look at the context surrounding James 5:16. James’s whole point is that prayer is effective. He asks in James 5:13, “Is anyone among you suffering?” Then he replies, “Let him pray.” What about cheerfulness? Or sickness? Or sin? In each case, James encourages his readers to pray. Why? Because prayer is effective, which means, God hears his people and acts on their behalf.
Then, in the beginning of verse 16, because prayer is effective (James 5:13–15), he says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). To make it even clearer, he follows this with, “The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power.” That line is the second portion in a double dose of support for our praying. James’s point is to repeat his theme to pray because prayer is effective. His concern is not how prayer is made effective, but that prayer is effective. And then verse 17 comes to ground that point.
What About Elijah?
James 5:17 then brings in Elijah. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently.”
What does Elijah have to do with our praying? Does it mean that Elijah was righteous and his prayers worked, so we should be like Elijah for our prayers to work too? Is that what he is saying?
No way.
“Prayer is effective not because of great men who pray, but because of a great God who graciously hears his people.”
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Look at the book. James says that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He was just a man. He was like us. He had a nature like ours. And being just a man, being like us, having a nature like ours, he prayed fervently and God heard. The point is not that we should be righteous at the extraordinary level of an Elijah, but that he was normal like you and me. James doesn’t say for us to be like Elijah for our prayers to be answered, but that Elijah was like us and his prayers were answered — therefore, pray.
Don’t Miss What’s Main
This means that the focus of effective prayer is not us, but God. Prayer has less to do with the specifics of how we say what we say, and more to do with the one to whom we are saying it.
We pray as ordinary people who have an extraordinary God. We’re just normal, you and I. We’re just normal like Elijah. Prayer is effective, not because of great men who pray, but because of a great God who in Christ graciously hears his people.
He’s the main ingredient. So, pray.