{"id":18759,"date":"2025-06-21T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T23:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/?p=18759"},"modified":"2025-05-26T15:31:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T14:31:46","slug":"prayer-for-the-week-21st-june-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/2025\/06\/21\/prayer-for-the-week-21st-june-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Prayer for the Week – 21st June 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 21st<\/sup> \u2013 Psalm 42\u00a0 – There is no Hope without Faith and no Faith without Hope. \u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n

Psalm 42 expresses deep longing for God\u2019s presence, even in the face of hardship and despair. It uses the image of a deer panting for water to symbolise the soul\u2019s intense thirst for God. The passage reminds us of the pain of being separated from Gods presence whilst urging the reader to trust in God\u2019s faithfulness and look forward to praising Him again.<\/p>\n

When writing this reflection and thinking about how to summarise my ideas one of my friends posted a quote on Facebook \u2013 yet another \u2018God-incidence\u2019 when thinking about something and a response appears in front of you. The quote my friend shared and unknowingly enthused my thought process was from Desmond Tutu – \u2018Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness\u2019. In our faith we need to trust in God and see that the light is still there, shining in the darkness.<\/p>\n

I recently preached on the theme of Hope and encouraged the young people present to write, or research on phones, a short prayer using the acronym HOPE, a number of excellent examples were read out but a favourite, which was found on the internet, was \u2018Holding On with Patient Expectation\u2019. \u00a0The foundation of our faith is that we wait in hope of God\u2019s response. And I was reminded of that \u2018holding on with patient expectation\u2019 following a day visit my daughter and young grand-daughter recently made to Blackpool. They had taken bucket and spade and the entire journey was all about going on the beach. But with horror on their arrival they discovered the tide fully up and no sand to be seen. Following a mini meltdown, and despite their disappointment a busy morning, was spent on the park, shopping, eating and waiting for the tide to recede, with fairly patient expectation considering her age. The photograph below is evidence of that pure joy of a 2 year old when their hope is fulfilled \u2013 when they have waited patiently and have received the gift they were waiting for. \u00a0Is our faith and hope filled with similar joy when what we have waited for finally comes to fruition? Do we still have that unadulterated excitement bubbling within us \u2013 that ability to run open-armed towards our destination.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you. <\/em><\/p>\n

You alone are my hearts desire and I long to worship you <\/em><\/p>\n

You alone are my strength, my shield, to You alone may my spirit yield. <\/em><\/p>\n

You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship You.<\/em><\/p>\n

Martin J Nystrom, 1956. StF 544<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Philippa Hill, Trustee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 21st \u2013 Psalm 42\u00a0 – There is no Hope without Faith and no Faith without Hope. \u00a0 Psalm 42 expresses deep longing for God\u2019s presence, even in the face of hardship and despair. It uses the image of a deer panting for water to symbolise the soul\u2019s intense thirst for God. The passage reminds us of the pain of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[592,81,349,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-spirituality","category-prayer-worship","category-prayer","category-prayer-for-the-week"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 04:08:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}