[left that other site]

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem

Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed and Sanctified is Your Most Holy Name!
You Alone Are Worthy To Be Praised,
Holy and Righteous,
So Perfect in Justice and Purity,
Yet Abounding In Compassion and Love!

1. By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down, yea, we wept
When we remembered Zion.
2. We hung our harps
Upon the willows in the midst of it.
3. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song,
And those who plundered us requested mirth,
Saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4. How shall we sing the LORD’s song
In a foreign land?

And here we are,
In an exile of sorts,
Surrounded by bloodshed, depravity, pornography, and lies,
Struggling daily to keep Truth Alive,
When sometime it seems the Whole World is Against us!
Sometimes we just want to "Hang up our Harp in The Tree,
When some boorish, godless person says some snide, sarcastic thing.
After all, HOW can I Praise The Lord, When My Heart is Breaking?
How Can I Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land?

5. If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget its skill!
6. If I do not remember you,
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth—
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.

Father, We Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem,
According to Your Will,
According To Your Word,
According to Your Promise.
We Thank You For These Psalms,
Which Show The Deepest and Darkest Longings of Your People,
Those Emotions that exalt a People, and those that do not.
You made us to be Beautiful,
But we have a way of ruining that with sin.
Yet You Love us, even when we are depressed,
despondent, or even mean.

7. Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom
The day of Jerusalem,
Who said, “Raze it, raze it,
To its very foundation!”

8. O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
9. Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!

Father, even as we struggle with verses like this,
Remind us that we are not wrestling with Flesh and Blood,
But with spiritual entities that have been battling for millennia.
Give us eyes that can see what is really going on,
so that we will know how to pray!
We ask for Your Grace to descend upon those who defend Your Name,
Both in Israel, and in Our own Beloved America,
Till Messiah Comes,
And makes All Things Right.

Let All That Has Been Concealed,
Be Revealed.

LORD, We Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem,
According To Your Will and Promise.
We Beseech You on Behalf of Our Captive Brethren,
Christians and Jews,
In Bondage in Hostile lands.

We Pray For Our Beloved USA
We Ask That Your People Receive Wisdom from You
To do the Right Thing.
We Pray For The Swift and Sure Coming of Messiah,
Blessed Be He,
To Establish His Kingdom,
and Make All Things Right.

Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.



Hallelujah and Amen

ML/LTOS

[left that other site]

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem

In my search for images for today's thread, I came across a few that were very cynical and disheartening. These were atheist or secular websites that cherry-pick individual Bible Verses out of context in order to discredit the Bible. As you may have guessed, the verse these sites chose to illustrate was the last one in the Psalm.

I have to admit, the first few times I read this Psalm, I was a bit disturbed as well! This was further exacerbated by the fact that I already knew the first part of the Psalm, about the Rivers of Babylon, as it was a popular Reggae Tune in the 70's that I used to play in my Rock Band. And so, as a new Christian reading this Psalm for the first time, I approached it with delight, because I already KNEW the lyrics. The tune bounced around in my head as I read the Psalm...I KNOW THIS! Then...I crashed into that last line. What the heck is THAT?

Now, it's not for me to second-guess or make excuses for the Psalmist. I have never been in exile, a prisoner of war, or a slave. I have no right to tell someone who is in mourning to "Snap out of it", or that their heart's cry is "inappropriate". Not to mention that this is a Lamentation, a type of poetry that is no longer fashionable among us "enlightened" folks.

Perhaps God allowed this difficult verse to appear in our Bibles today, and not be swallowed up by Antiquity, to show us that, even in our darkest hour, when some truly ugly thoughts invade our minds, we can't hide from Him. All the pious, goody-two-shoes, religious lingo falls flat when it is used to cover up the ugliness of sin.

When we ourselves are by the Rivers of Babylon, so depressed we can't even sing a song of prayer, too benumbed to touch our hands to our instruments, so angry that all we can think about is vengeance and murder, God still loves us. Perheps he loves us best when we are at our ugliest, because that is we are the most vulnerable before Him. It is precisely when we reach bottom that he reaches down and pulls us up out of the muddy river.

And that is where the cynical atheist sites miss the boat.

Come and Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem, For Our FRiends in Need, For Persecuted Believers, and For Our Beloved Nation.

"He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:25)

God Bless America!

Blessings To All Who Visit This Garden of Prayer.



This Symbol Represents Christians in The Middle East, who desperately need our Prayers.

Hallelujah and Amen

ML/LTOS