divine hours – Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
    Wasn’t it announced to you from the beginning?
    Haven’t you understood since the earth was founded?
God inhabits the earth’s horizon—
    its inhabitants are like locusts—
    stretches out the skies like a curtain
    and spreads it out like a tent for dwelling.
    God makes dignitaries useless
    and the earth’s judges into nothing.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
    scarcely is their shoot rooted in the earth
    when God breathes on them, and they dry up;
    the windstorm carries them off like straw.
So to whom will you compare me,
    and who is my equal? says the holy one.

Look up at the sky and consider:
    Who created these?
    The one who brings out their attendants one by one,
    summoning each of them by name.
Because of God’s great strength
    and mighty power, not one is missing.
Why do you say, Jacob,
    and declare, Israel,
    “My way is hidden from the Lord,
    my God ignores my predicament”?
Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
    The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the creator of the ends of the earth.
    He doesn’t grow tired or weary.
His understanding is beyond human reach,
    giving power to the tired
    and reviving the exhausted.
Youths will become tired and weary,
    young men will certainly stumble;
    but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength;
    they will fly up on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not be tired;
    they will walk and not be weary. (Common English Bible)

Strength, endurance, and perseverance are vital resources which come from the reservoir of spiritual resources. One does not simply will it into reality, and, poof! It is there! No, these resources must be drawn from a source that is reliable and continual.

Whenever you and I are persuaded to use an unreliable and/or limited resource, like our own, or some slick marketed one, we are not revived or restored to keep going and persevere through a given situation. In such times, we may naively think that God is absent, and cry, “God ignores my predicament.”

But God isn’t sleeping. The Lord hasn’t gone out to lunch or taken a bathroom break. God is not the problem.

We actually thought we could handle our own junk, independently, without any help, saying, “I’ve got this!” Maybe, for a while, you did. But then the strength ran out; weariness overwhelmed you. All of sudden, it seems, you have overestimated yourself, and underestimated God.

With no steady and reliable resource to draw from, your brain’s thinking became distorted, and your heart’s confidence sunk. That’s because the sovereign and majestic God is the One who gives power and life, and there was trust in other things beside the Lord.

Yet, placing our hope in the God who is there, is to plunge into an inexhaustible and gracious pool of strength. God enables us to fly and soar above our human predicaments and our daily problems. With the power God provides, we can carry-on and follow-through with the demands, duties, and desires of life on this earth which God created for us.

To draw from the deep well of God, it is thus extremely necessary to meet with this God on a regular and consistent basis. If food and drink for the body requires multiple daily attention and time, then filling the soul is just as, and even more, important.

This need for daily spiritual food and drink is why I choose to engage in the Divine Hours, also known as the Daily Office, or Fixed Hour Prayer. At certain set times in the day I break away from what I’m doing to give attention to the soul by drawing from the merciful resources of God.

Perhaps this might be for you, as well, a fresh way to address your parched and needy soul.

Here is a link to the Divine Hours, based on the book of prayers compiled by Phyllis Tickle:

explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/hours.php

Yet, no matter the particulars of how we address meeting with God, consistently drawing from the well of grace is vital to our spiritual and emotional health.

Set me free, O God, from the bondage of my sins, and give me the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to me in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Joseph and Potiphar's Wife by Hermine F Schäfer 1964 — Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife by Hermine F Schäfer, 1964

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So, Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”

But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.

One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house,she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So, the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. (NIV)

We learn a great about both God and Joseph in today’s Old Testament lesson: God is the supreme Sovereign over everything, and his providence is the force behind all of events; and, Joseph is morally conscious of his ethical accountability to the God who is always watching.

From a sheer worldly perspective, Joseph was a failure. Yet, from God’s vantage point Joseph was a resounding success because he was mindful of God despite his circumstances. Joseph was faithful in all his mundane workaday duties, which made him able to handle the advances and temptations of Potiphar’s wife.

The seductions of this life are legion. We are tempted at every turn to compromise our conscience or our convictions to either get ahead in life or avoid some difficulty. It would be easy to rationalize our actions, believing that a brief bedroom rodeo would not hurt anyone. However, sexual infidelity is the opium of unfaithfulness to God. Cheating is cheating, whether we are caught, or not. Whitewashing the picket fence does not hide anything from God.

Seductions come in all sorts of forms: materialism and the allure of new stuff; preoccupation with comfort and painless experiences; shortcuts to job success and upward mobility; the hoarding and whoring of time; and, much more.

For me, an effective counter practice to the seductions of the world is to reclaim and redeem time through keeping the Daily Office (or the Divine Hours) – set times throughout the day in which I stop what I am doing and take a few minutes for Scripture and prayer. This practice reminds me that my life orbits God and centers in the Lord Jesus, and not the other way around.

Seven times a day I praise You, because of Your righteous judgments. (Psalm 119:164, NKJV)

We succumb to seduction whenever our lives are mismanaged, lacking boundaries, and without effective structure. Discovering a rhythm of daily life that works for you is vital to resisting temptation and realizing spiritual development.

God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12, NLT)

May you flourish and thrive with the ethical fruit of righteousness and experience the settled peace of a well-lived life.

Almighty God, blessed Father, Son, and Spirit do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.