Week 12: Day 5

Intro: Hello and welcome to Orbit, a short reflection to help you put God at the centre of your life from the team behind Satellites - I'm Christie Gilfeather. Each weekday we share a little bit of the Bible with you, give you a chance to pray and think about it, and provide you with one practical way to put it into practice today.

Bible: Psalm 12:1-2 says: Help, Lord, for no one is faithful any more; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. Everyone lies to their neighbour; they flatter with their lips but harbour deception in their hearts.

Thought: Isn’t it hard to live in the world sometimes? In this psalm, the writer is lamenting the state of the world around them. They say that ‘no one is faithful anymore’ than loyal people have ‘vanished from the human race’ – it may well be that the psalmist is exaggerating just slightly here, but this is a picture of what it looks like to be really honest with God when we’re struggling with the behaviour of those around us.

We only need to look at the news to find things that provoke these kinds of thoughts. There is so much that is bad in the public sphere right now, and we’re desperately short of leaders who are honest and authentic to lead us through what is still a deeply complex and challenging time politically and in relation to the pandemic. Looking at our own world today we might find ourselves echoing the words of the psalmist and feeling them just as deeply.

Where is faithfulness? Where is justice? Where is honesty?

As Christians, it is right that we ask these questions. These are the very questions that we find in the words of prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah. If it doesn’t hurt us to see the injustice going on around us, then we’re not paying enough attention.

How can we engage with this brokenness in a way that is sustainable? By making sure that we are putting prayer first. Spending time with God fills our tank and allows us to give ourselves to love and service of the people around us. Time in which the holy spirit can shape us and change us is the space in which our senses will be sharpened, and our eyes opened to the prophetic call on the life of every Jesus follower to challenge injustice and resist sin. Only out that place, when we’ve allowed God to challenge us to pull the plank out of our own eye before we address the speck in our neighbour’s eye, can we serve the world and be examples of a better way of being.

Prayer: Almighty God, father of us all, you see the complexity and injustice and darkness in our world, and you know the pain and mourning that we feel in response to it. Help us not to become overwhelmed, but to remember that by your holy spirit you empower us to call for love and justice in the world around us.

Action: When you read this Psalm, what situations in our world come to mind? When you have a sense of this, look for practical ways that you can contribute to, or support practical action addressing the problems you care about. Could you give some time to volunteer at a foodbank? Could you give some of your money to a charity which seeks to bring about racial justice? Could you write to your MP about an issue connected to climate change? Try to turn your righteous anger into action today.