Thursday, 6 March

Let all who seek you / rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation / say evermore, ‘God is great!’ Psalm 70:4

Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God. Luke 18:42-43

Here we find two texts inviting us to rejoice, to praise and glorify God and to receive the benefits of faith.  But are we not weighed down with the cares of the world, climate change, political unrest, wars, hunger, poverty, sickness, family and personal problems?   

Psalm 70 begins in a gloomy mood, invoking God’s help with particular troubles, and then in verse 4 (above), even before this help is forthcoming, speaks of rejoicing and love and praise. The blind man at Jericho follows Jesus calling after him for help, clearly in the expectation that this apparently impossible help is coming and he is not disappointed.  Jesus tells him that it is because of his faith.  The former blind man praises God, not alone but joined by all who have seen what happened.

So let us

• Rejoice and be glad in anticipation of God’s goodness
• Pray in faith and with expectation
• Praise God together, in community, rejoicing in the blessings that we have received even as we continue to pray in faith for God’s help with on-going problems.

Dear Lord,

We rejoice in those memories of past blessings……….

We rejoice in the knowledge that, whether we feel it or not, you are with us in the present helping us now, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways………

We rejoice that you have given us to one another for help and support………

We rejoice!  Thanks be to God!

Kay Khan, St Werburgh’s