Scripture and Prayer on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Pastor David reads Jonah 3-4 and offers a prayer from Maria W. Stewart:

O Lord God, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are thy ways above our ways, and thy thoughts above our thoughts. For wise and holy purposes best known to thyself, thou hast seen fit to deprive me of all earthly relatives; but when my father and mother forsook me, then thou did take me up. I desire to thank thee, that I am this day a living witness to testify that thou art a God that will ever vindicate the cause of the poor and needy, and that thou hast always proved thyself to be a friend and father to me. O, continue thy loving kindness even unto the end; and when health and strength begin to decay, and I, as it were, draw nigh unto the grave, O then afford me thy heart-cheering presence, and enable me to rely entirely upon thee. Never leave me nor forsake me, but have mercy upon me for thy great name’s sake. And not for myself alone do I ask these blessings, but for all the poor and needy, all widows and fatherless children, and for the stranger in distress; and may they call upon thee in such manner as to be convinced that thou art a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God; and thine shall be the praise, forever. Amen.

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Pastor David reads Hebrews 2:1-10 and offers a slave woman’s prayer from 1816:

O Lord, bless my master. When he calls upon thee to damn his soul, do not hear him, do not hear him, but hear me – save him – make him know he is wicked, and he will pray to thee.

I am afraid, O Lord, I have wished him bad wishes in my heart – keep me from wishing him bad – though he whips me and beats me sore, tell me of my sins, and make me pray more to thee – make me more glad for what thou hast done for me, a poor Negro.

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Monday, February 15, 2021

Pastor David reads Hebrews 1 and offers a prayer from Daniel Alexander Payne:

Haste thee, haste thee, hour divine,
Joys ecstatic – bliss is thine.
And raptures from the throne above –
Sweeter those, than life to me,
When the world and cares to dlee;
And Jesus speaks, in tones of love,
O, time of prayer! O, hour divine! –
Ecstatic joys and peace are thine!

Fairer thou than sunny rays –
Holiest time of all my days!
O, hour of love and joy, draw nigh –
Spread my faith, these eagle wings –
Speed thee where the angels sing:
Where Jesus pleads my cause on high.
O, time of prayer! O, hour divine! –
Ecstatic joys and peace are thine!

Now is come the hour of prayer –
Lovely, precious Jesus, hear:
Stoop thou from thy throne above –
Bless me, bless me, Son of God!
Thy saving grace, thy dying love.
O, time of prayer! O, hour divine! –
Ecstatic joys and peace are thine!

O, Jesus, thou my portion art: –
Sun of my life – joy of my heart.
O, raptures! bliss – O, God of love!
Exalt my thoughts, my hopes, my soul,
Higher than where the planets roll –
Up to thy dazzling throne of love.
O, time of prayer! O, hour divine! –
Ecstatic joys and peace are thine!

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Monday, February 15, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Friday, February 12, 2021

Pastor David reads 2 Timothy 4 and offers a prayer from James Alexander Forbes, Jr.:

O Lord, here we stand. We’ve heard the experience of Peter and John and then we’ve heard the experience of that John who was on the Isle of Patmos. We see the handwriting on the wall. Times are going to get tough. Lord, we’ve committed ourselves to the Kingdom. Tonight we want to rededicate. We want to rededicate, and say “Lord, here I am, send me.” Some folks may not like me. I may lose my job. I may be called first one thing and another. But Lord, help me to know how to be wise. Don’t make a fool out of me unless you let me be a fool for Christ’s sake.

Lord, teach us how to bear witness. Teach us how to be sensitive. Teach us where we are to stop. We can’t be everywhere. Take us by the hand, and lead us to the temples that you’d like us to stop by. Let us see the lame men and women that you would want us to help. Then give us the strength to get up on our feet. Enable us to declare with all that is within us that the KIngdoms of this world must become the Kingdoms of Jesus Christ.

Lord, help us. Help us, Lord. Help me, Lord. Help me in my post of duty. I’m a teacher, Lord; help me as a teacher. Lord, I’m a preacher. Sometimes the powers that urge me to compromise are very strong. But help me, Lord, to stand up for the Kingdom.

Lord, there are pastors here who are trying to serve, who are trying to love, who are not about anything radical. But in our day, Lord, just to be a Christian encourages others to view them in a negative light. Lord, be with them. Be with them as they return with a dedication to your cause. While we wait here, Lord, I don’t know how you are going to be with us in these days. Some people have their own notions of how you anoint your people. Some want outward demonstrations. Some want inward demonstrations. But, Lord, it matters not to me how you are going to be with us. I just want you to come and be with us.

Lord, fill us with the inward light. Give us, like you gave many Quakers, the powers of the spirit to bear witness in trying times. Lord, give us a Pentecostal power to somehow clean the carbon in our hearts so that we might run with joy and enthusiasm. Lord, any way you want to bless us, bless us. Bless us in the midst of quietness. Bless us in the midst of noise. Bless us with an inward penetration, or with an outward demonstration, of your presence. But however you do it, Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on each one of us. Lord, break up our kingdom. Melt down the fragments, then mold us, Lord; and then fill us with the Spirit of the living God. Fall afresh upon us while we stand right here in this chapel tonight, do something for us. Do something for us that makes us know that you are still real. Do something for us that lets us know we’re not alone. Do something for us, Lord, that sends us on our way fully confident that the power of GOd is more than a match for the enemy.

Lord, sustain us, lead us, and guide us. And when we get low, lift us; and when we get wrong, correct us. And when we go out on the deep end, give us a life raft to bring us back to the shore. But Lord, be with us and stand by us. And your name which is worthy to be above all other names shall have all the praise. We ask for these blessings in the name of the One whose Kingdom shall have no end. Amen.

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Friday, February 12, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Thursday, February 11, 2021

Pastor David reads 2 Timothy 3 and offers a prayer from Howard Thurman:

We find it very difficult, our Father, to bring to a point of focus all of the fragmentation and divisiveness of our lives. We ask Thee to draw upon Thy long experience with Thy children, and out of this special wisdom and understanding, to interpret the words which we say to Thee in our prayer. We are overwhelmed by our great inability somehow to manage the imperfections of life, the imperfections of our own private lives, the clear insight which suddenly becomes dim and often disappears at the moment when we are sure that we could act upon it; the good deed which we express and which, as it leaves us, wings on it way to fulfill itself in another’s life, in another’s need; and as we watch, we are horrified at the way in which something goes wrong and the good deed is not a good deed in the way in which it works, and we are thrown back upon ourselves. We don’t know how to manage the imperfections fo our lives, the imperfections of so many expressions of our lives.

We have brooded over nature. We have understood here and there some of its inner mandates, and we have been able to translate those these mandates into expressions of machinery and objects, and we have learned how to operate these machines and to make these objects, created out of our insights, expressions of our intent. We have made these things into servants to obey our minds and our wills and then, suddenly, we are faced with radical and quick and devastating breakdown! Something goes wrong, we do not know what, and there is mindless violence and destruction. We don’t know how to manage the imperfections of our lives.

Now we wait for the fateful moment when once again we ourselves as a nation will begin learning, with more finesse and accuracy, to kill, to destroy. And we feel, some of us, that the only way to survive is to do this, and some of us are sure that this is but to hasten the end of the age.

How to manage the imperfections of our minds and our spirits, our thoughts, even our intent? O God, we don’t know how. We don’t know how. We don’t know how. Take all the outcry of our anguish, all the sin and brokenness of our faltering selves and hold them with such sureness that we learn from Thee.

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Thursday, February 11, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Pastor David reads 2 Timothy 2:14-26 and offers a prayer from Eloise Alberta Veronica Bibb:

Lord, all I am and hope to be,
I humbly offers, King, to thee!
When clouds arise, thy guidance send,
Accept my life, and bless it, Friend.

O Father! let me rest in thee,
Resigned to what *thou* will’st for me;
Content, though all my fond hopes fade,
And visions bright in gloom are laid.

When I was but a tiny child,
Thou shielded me from tempests wild;
And gave me strength to do the right
Within temptation’s treacherous sight.

And now in girlhood’s solemn time,
Oh, make my life one perfect rhyme,
Sung to the air of sweet content,
With blended sounds of a life well spent.

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Pastor David reads 2 Timothy 1:15-2:13 and offers a prayer from W.E.B. Du Bois:

In the midst of life and deeds it is easy to have endurance and strength and determination, but Thy Word, O Lord, teaches us, that this is not enough to bring good to the world – to bring happiness and the worthier success. For *this* we must endure to the end – learn to finish things – to bring them to accomplishment and full fruition. We must not be content with plans, ambitions, and resolves; with part of a message or part of an education, but be set and determined to fulfill the promise and complete the task and secure the full training. Such men and women alone does God save by lifting them above and raising them to higher worlds and wider prospects. Give us then, O God, to resist today the temptation of shirking, and the grit to endure to the end. Amen.

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Scripture and Prayer on Monday, February 8, 2021

Pastor David reads 2 Timothy 1:1-14 and offers a prayer from James Weldon Johnson:

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way.

Thou who hast by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray;

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand
True to our God, true to our native land!

Posted by Mt. Haley Church of God on Monday, February 8, 2021