Slices
Prepare
How troubled are you by current global challenges to life on earth? Are you tempted to wonder if God is powerless?
Bible passage
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth. A song.
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’
11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Explore
Our ears and eyes are regularly assaulted by evidence of climate crisis: drought, floods, famine, mudslides, melting polar icecaps, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns. Recent wars have released global insecurity and cataclysmic devastation. We are faced with malign forces of nature and the brutal forces of war. Psalm 46 could well be describing our world (vs 1–3,6). The psalmist is not urging people to have faith in God but is raising the question whether the God they have put their faith in can be trusted. What evidence for confidence do you find here?
Interestingly, the Hebrew for ‘break of day’ (v 5) is the same phrase for the time Moses called the walls of the Red Sea to collapse (Exodus 14:27), evidence of God’s power over both the natural world and the might of the enemy, in this case, the Egyptian army. Moses’ and Miriam’s subsequent songs graphically describe God’s power (Exodus 15:7–11,21). This psalm has other resonances with that Red Sea escape.
God calls us to be still, to experience his presence in the eye of the storm, a refuge in the centre of a hurricane.
Respond
Hold out both hands. In your mind, place in one a war zone that troubles you, in the other a natural disaster that distresses you. Plead with God to intervene. Then hold out empty hands to receive God’s powerful stillness.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Nehemiah 11,12; Luke 9
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for wisdom and creativity for SU Finland as they prepare and promote the Christian family calendar of weekly Bible stories and activities. Pray too that all the young people in Finland who will receive the Who is Jesus? magazine at confirmations may encounter Jesus this summer.
