Meditation and Prayer
by Steve Durham
Each week the Evanston Police Department chaplains write a brief meditation and prayer for the officer and civilian staff of the Department. Each month in the EFM newsletter I’ll reprint one of mine. This is the meditation and prayer for Sunday, May 2, unedited (so the Departmental references are left intact).
MEDITATION and PRAYER for SUNDAY, MAY 2, 2021
[Based on Psalm 40:6-8 Common English Bible]
[Ps 40:6] You [Lord] don’t relish sacrifices or offerings; you don’t require entirely burned offerings or compensation offerings – but you have given me ears!
[Ps 40:7] So I said, “Here I come! I’m inscribed in the written scroll.
[Ps 40:8] I want to do your will, my God. Your Instruction [Torah] is deep within me.”
QUESTION: Just how “religious” do you have to be, to get God’s attention?
SOME WRESTLING: The Psalmist (King David) in Psalm 40 wrestles around with the same thing. And here is David’s answer
God doesn’t need or want all the fancy schmancy sacrifices and offerings in the Temple or outlying shrines in Israel. Instead, one day David realizes God has equipped him with an innate capacity to hear God speak. David doesn’t have to do anything special to find it or “turn it on.” It’s just there, waiting to be used. David calls it the “ears” God has given him. We might call it his (and our) spirit: that surprising and deepest layer of our being, that is attuned to spiritual reality (which is why it’s called our “spirit”!). But David calls it his “ears”: his inborn capacity to hear. And David (and we) learn first of all that God is calling us by name. That’s what this business about being “inscribed in the written scroll” is all about. Your name is already written in God’s heavenly scroll! And you didn’t have to do a thing about it – nothing to earn it, nothing to pay it back! It’s just a fact of your life, like the color of your eyes. “Your Instruction [Torah] us deep within me!” Already. Without a single offering or sacrifice being made. So what’s required of you?
ANSWER: Just say to the Lord your God: “Here I come! … I want to do your will!” It’s that simple, that straightforward.
May God richly bless and protect you as you go about your appointed rounds this day, doing what God has already called you to do – and what you do so extraordinarily well, and for which you don’t begin to get the kudos you deserve: serving and protecting the community!
Let’s pray …
Gracious and heavenly Father: you are almost too good! You have approached us, called us by name, and equipped us to respond, even before we knew your name! May we mirror that grace and unrepayable goodness in our calling today. May we extend the grace and mercy of you, our heavenly Father, to all we meet. Please keep us safe from not only danger and harm, but from all misunderstanding and abuse. Watch over those we have left at home and in our neighborhoods today, that we might be safely and joyfully reunited with them when our shift is ended. We ask it in each and all of the Names you are known by, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen!