I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.
(Psalm 3.5-6)

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As part of the Tuesday night Bible group, I’ve been thinking about the Psalms. Psalm 1 encourages us to give our attention to God, in prayer and reading the scriptures: ‘That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither’. Psalm 2 declares who God is and speaks of the one we know as Jesus, ‘He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.”’ Then in Psalm 3 there is David praying to God for help. David was in a lot of trouble when he wrote Psalm 3. Eugene Peterson writes, ‘Prayer begins in a realization that we cannot help ourselves, so we must reach out to God. "Help!" is the basic prayer...If we don't know that we need help, prayer will always be peripheral to our lives, a matter of mood and good manners. But the moment we know we are in trouble, prayer is a life-or-death matter.’.

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Rev’d Mark Anderson