Daily Lesson for August 13, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 130:

1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;

Lord, hear my voice; *

let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *

O Lord, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *

therefore you shall be feared.

4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *

in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for the Lord,

more than watchmen for the morning, *

more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, *

for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *

and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

The late, great Baptist preacher, theologian, and social gadfly Carlyle Marney refused to lead his people in prayer for anything he thought was actually in their hands to control. That was complicity in inaction, he thought; and he had the guts to say no.

Thus we come to prayers for deliverance from this dreaded COVID-19 disease. No prayer will do what masks and vaccines can do. So if we're looking for a miracle, it's already here. Prayers answered.

At the same time, however, we do pray that hearts will open to receive the miracle. And in humility we should understand how hearts might be closed. For too long too much has been done to erode the legitimacy of government. The Tuskegee Experiment alone is enough to put questions in the minds of a lot of black people. And years and years of questioning the conclusions of science on the fossil record, plus who knows how many end-times conspiracy speakers on Sunday nights, has put a whole lot of questions in the minds of a whole lot of people, most of which has been sadly unsettled and even evilly fomented by a whole lot of people sworn to serve and protect.

And so it's really all a question of legitimacy, and therefore it is perhaps a matter of prayer -- not for a sudden miraculous cure, but for the miracle of trust. We pray to God -- not so much for deliverance from the disease -- but for the changing of hearts and minds and an end to distrust.

The Psalmist says this morning, "Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord."

The pediatric beds are full in Tarrant County. I can't much think of any deeper depth of sorrow and sadness than that. So we do call out. We cry out. We ask the LORD to help us.

And, more appropriately, we ask the LORD to help us help our ourselves.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.