Wednesday Morning
May 31

Prayer Arena - 🌴 Root, ✂️ Prune, 🍇 Fruit

This Summer of Prayer is not merely a chance to pray, but a chance to grow in your prayer life. You will begin to see a new 🌴 Root, ✂️ Prune, 🍇 Fruit section. Here you will find questions to consider, teaching from the elders, verses to inform your transformation, and chances to obey God in how He directing your prayer life.

SWBC Shared Purpose

Pray for God’s grace to enable us to glorify Him by making disciples of Jesus Christ among all peoples.

Father,
We ask you to empower us by your Holy Spirit to joyfully come under the authority of Jesus as we help others do the same through discipleship.
Guide us into opportunities to be ambassadors of Christ to people from all kinds of places and walks of life.
Give us the joy of seeing people come to faith and be baptized.
Give us joy in obeying all you have commanded us and lead us to teach others how to enter that joy as well.
Help us to have confidence that you are with us and lead us to invite others to share in the security and joy of knowing you are always with us.
Amen.
Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

🌴 Root, ✂️ Prune, 🍇 Fruit

Am I expectant with my prayers—believing and trusting that God will answer them? Why or why not?
Matthew 7:9-11: Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Yesterday, we asked if we believed that God really would give us what we ask for. Today, we find that God will not be outdone by mere humans. We ask our parents for gifts and expect to receive. How much more from our Heavely Father?

Praying Scripture

About Lament: You will find many Psalms where the Psalmist cries out to God in pain. These are Psalms of Lament. Psalm 10 is one of these. The heart-felt emotion comes from deep pain of a man, even a king, living in a troubled world. The Psalmists were real people just like us, crying out to God about the pain of everyday life.
Psalm 10:1: Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
As you study Lamentations, out hope is that you might begin to become fluent in the dialect of lament. Just as you use other prayer dialects—adoration, thanksgiving, confession, and so on—lament is a biblical and needed form of prayer. It is pouring out your complaint to God.
From Lamentations (page 11)
by Blanton & Gordon
📕 Southwest Bible Church women are meeting for a study of lament this summer. Contact Megan McCarthy for more info!

The Corner Room - "Psalm 11" (Lyric Video)

Psalms

Psalm 10 (Listen)

Why Do You Hide Yourself?

10:1   Why, O LORD, do you stand far away?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2   In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
    let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3   For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
    and the one greedy for gain curses1 and renounces the LORD.
4   In the pride of his face2 the wicked does not seek him;3
    all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5   His ways prosper at all times;
    your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
    as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6   He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
    throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7   His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
    under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8   He sits in ambush in the villages;
    in hiding places he murders the innocent.
  His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9     he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
  he lurks that he may seize the poor;
    he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10   The helpless are crushed, sink down,
    and fall by his might.
11   He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
    he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
12   Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand;
    forget not the afflicted.
13   Why does the wicked renounce God
    and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14   But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
    that you may take it into your hands;
  to you the helpless commits himself;
    you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15   Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
    call his wickedness to account till you find none.
16   The LORD is king forever and ever;
    the nations perish from his land.
17   O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18   to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Footnotes

[1] 10:3 Or and he blesses the one greedy for gain
[2] 10:4 Or of his anger
[3] 10:4 Or the wicked says, “He will not call to account”

(ESV)

Psalm 11 (Listen)

The Lord Is in His Holy Temple

To the choirmaster. Of David.

11:1   In the LORD I take refuge;
  how can you say to my soul,
    “Flee like a bird to your mountain,
2   for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
    they have fitted their arrow to the string
    to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3   if the foundations are destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?”1
4   The LORD is in his holy temple;
    the LORD’s throne is in heaven;
    his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5   The LORD tests the righteous,
    but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6   Let him rain coals on the wicked;
    fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7   For the LORD is righteous;
  he loves righteous deeds;
    the upright shall behold his face.

Footnotes

[1] 11:3 Or for the foundations will be destroyed; what has the righteous done?

(ESV)

AboutPrayResources