Prayer for Serenity

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

                                            Reinhold Niebuhr

Psalm 27:4-8 Names of God Bible

⁴ I have asked one thing from Yahweh.
    This I will seek:
    to remain in Yahweh’s house all the days of my life
        in order to gaze at Yahweh’s beauty
            and to search for an answer in his temple.
⁵ He hides me in his shelter when there is trouble.
    He keeps me hidden in his tent.
    He sets me high on a rock.
⁶ Now my head will be raised above my enemies who surround me.
    I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy in his tent.
    I will sing and make music to praise Yahweh.
⁷ Hear, O Yahweh, when I cry aloud.
    Have pity on me, and answer me.
⁸ When you said,
    “Seek my face,”
        my heart said to you,
            “O Yahweh, I will seek your face.”^[a]

The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

There is something very tender and heartwarming about an all-powerful God urging us, mere humans to draw close to Him.  When we are drawing too close to ourselves and our own carefully manicured well shaven mirrored images. It is in this moment, these moments, when we subtly become most self-critical. It is the place where we do not feel the need or the want or desire to value ourselves.

When God is asking us to move our faces away from our mirrors, seek His face it is His desire for us to learn more of Him, swiftly and thoroughly discard those distorted self-images which separate us from the reality of God’s knowledge of us, from His greater character and His heart. This exposure, this focus on His face causes us to know who He is instead of what He can give. God yearns for fellowship with us and created mankind for this very purpose. His passion and desire for fellowship is fully evident when He calls us His children and friends.

Why should God have us to turn away from ourselves to ask us to seek His face? He is the one who created us in His image, who has woven us together inside our mother’s womb before our mom’s knew of our existence, gave us life and breath and blessed us abundantly. But He does ask us because that is His heart’s very deepest longing, against our fleshly desires, selfish, self-centered selves.  

If we are willing to turn our faces away from our carnival mirrors, to give God our Father greater sovereignty over our created image, He will place His desires within our hearts so that they would replace our own desires, so we walk closely with Him.  As we do, we are blessed abundantly just by being in His presence.  

He calls to our deepest places because He longs for intimacy. God is a God of covenant relationship and calls us away and unto a love encounter with Him.    

King David answered this love call with urgency. Nothing hindered their love for one another. There was no question David could be very hard on himself. David had a vast number of serious personal faults and failures. The Hebrew Testament is strewn with stories of failed fatherhood, adultery, criminality and nearly impossible to imagine levels of intrigue which alienated many from him. Many were the people who wanted no part of David’s character or personality. David could not avoid knowledge and awareness of them. David could not also avoid his own very deep, intimate feelings about Himself turning against him.

Are we ourselves any different from this biblical version of David, the man who God Himself declared to be the “Man after His own Heart?” Not one of us could ever stand up to the full weight of revelation should we genuinely unleash all of our personal mess against ourselves. There is no mirror we would not shatter! There is no tear we would not cry a thousand, thousand times over and over. It is inconceivable we would ever look at ourselves again, have anyone look at us.

But thanks be to God our Father, that we have such a promise from Psalm 27.

Something leaps high and mightily within me when I read how the heart of God responds to our cries and our pleas! In this passage, the first thing we see is the Psalmist acknowledging that the idea of seeking God’s face originated not with us but with God. God extends the invitation to all, but who will hear the cry of His heart and respond? My observation has been that while many acknowledge the face of God, few take time to wait for His presence and to listen to His voice.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “’Seek and keep on seeking and you will find’” (Matthew 7:7, AMP), which echoes the word of the prophet Jeremiah to the Israelites, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13, ESV). God absolutely wants to be found, and even absolutely guarantees our success, as long as we absolutely don’t dare give up.

I’ve often felt that God wants to be pursued by us, because that is a sign of our genuine love, so he doesn’t always make it easy to sense his presence and hear his voice. And it is not simply a matter of being a genuine sign of our love – there is something in our faith, hope, love-minded pursuit of God’s face that stirs our hearts to greater love, as long as we don’t let discouragement come in. All God desires to do a “face exchange and transplant.” His beauty for our ugly!

In Psalm 27, however, we see the reply of a willing soul, who responds from the depth of his or her being — from the heart. And from the heart of those weary arises the cry, “I am seeking, and will continue to seek until I find.” After such a pledge, the Psalmist struggles with some doubt, but eventually concludes that he will be successful, if he doesn’t give up: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalms 27:13-14, ESV).

Let us this day strive join our self-weary heart with the Psalmist’ words in his unwavering pursuit, not giving up until we have seen the face of God! There is also no question as to the intent of God’s request unto David and by the vast expansion of time and space and Scriptures. It is an open invitation from a Holy God and requires a response which is full of an absolute expectancy and desire.

Seeking someone else’s image in our mirrors because we are tired of our own, it should be far beyond exciting to seek God’s face and understand Him better.

He constantly gives us this invitation; He continually gives us this incredibly gracious choice so that we might come to see our relationship with Him as free and not like we’re puppets. Our desire for God must be sincere and passionate.

There ought to be nothing more on this earth more important than seeking over own God’s own face and desiring to know Him intimately. The Creator of the Universe created us in His image to share quality fellowship with Him. His love is this simple; His request is simpler………He is saying, “Just be with Me,” that’s all.

One of these days we will simply have to stop beating ourselves up over nothing. Someday we have to agree that it is God’s face alone which is staring back at us when we look into our bathroom or bedroom mirrors. Unto that day, O’ LORD!

Challenge: Seek God’s face. Feed your spirit in the Word.  Ask Him questions about who He is and ask Him to awaken in you a passionate desire to know Him.

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us pray,

Faithful Father, thank you that your word revives my soul, gives wisdom to my mind and produces joy in my heart. Your word says that, if I abide in you, I will produce much fruit. Please help me to abide in you and experience your favor, you are able to do far more abundantly than all that I ask or imagine, according to the power at work within me. To you be glory throughout all our generations, forever and ever. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Alleluia! Amen.

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