Eyes That Are Open (1 Kings 8:52)

 


Wednesday, 10 September, 2025


Psalm 25

1 Kings 8:37-53

Acts 27:13-32


Eyes That Are Open (1 Kings 8:52)


Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you.


If there is any consistent theme across the Scriptures when it comes to what we should do, it is that we should turn to God. There is this idea of a relationship, where God calls to us, we call to God, God listens to us, and we listen to God, just soaked throughout.


King Solomon, in his dedication of the Temple, is eerily prescient when he talks about Israel sinning, being carried off in exile, calling to God, and being returned to the land. (And you can read it pretty much word-for-word in Daniel 9:1-19.) If we are to understand St Paul’s rule for Old Testament interpretation, that all these things happened by way of example, and was written down for our instruction (1 Corinthians 10:11), then we can be encouraged by the consistent back-and-forth between heaven and earth.


If anything happens to us, we ought to pray about it. If we have a really good day, we ought to talk to God about it. If we have a really rubbish day, then we ought to talk to God about it. His eyes and ears are open to us, and he has told us time and time again in the Scriptures that he wants us to talk to him.


God doesn’t have to be like this. There are any number of ways God could have made us and interacted with us. But he desires a loving relationship. Who are we to turn down something so wonderful?


Are you worried about what God thinks about you? Have you talked to him about it?


God of compassion, your eyes are open to the pleas of your servant people, and you hear us when we pray to you: give us a heart that responds to your call, that we may grow into the loving relationship you desire for us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For The Sake Of Ten (Genesis 18:32)

Image
  Monday, February 3, 2025 Psalm 78:16-38 Genesis 18:22-19:11 Luke 2:1-7 Observance: First Anglican Service at Sydney Cove, Conducted by Richard Johnson, Sydney, 1788 For The Sake Of Ten (Genesis 18:32) From this wonderfully pastoral tableau, of the old man and his wife entertaining three divine guests, comes a dark shadow. Approaching from the valley below them comes the cries of iniquity of the cities of the plain: Sodom and Gomorrah. Rising from their feast, the three men turn from blessing Abraham and Sarah to executing divine judgement. And the story just gets darker from here. But Abraham, in his boldness, has this immortal conversation with God, a conversation that uncovers for us whispers of Jesus’ words about people who are “salt” and “light”. God desires that none should perish, but that all should turn from their sins and live. And for the sake of just ten righteous people, the disaster about to befall Sodom and Gomorrah could be turned away...
Read more

The LORD will make you a house.

  Friday, July 28, 2023 Psalm 71 2 Samuel 7 John 8:1-11 Observance: Samson, bishop (d. 565) The LORD will make you a house. We learn three things from this conversation between David, Nathan and God. First, it is that we do not invite God into our presence. Rather, God comes alongside us, where we are, hiking through the wilderness. God gets down into the dust with us and puts up a tent. There is a reason why John made so much of this tent language in his first chapter: that the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us. Whichever part of the Bible we are reading, we see God coming to the people, rather than the people moving towards God. This is of particular comfort when we feel like we haven’t prayed enough, or regularly. We might have been distracted by the dust on our feet, but God has always been there right beside us. We just have to look up. Second, it is that God’s presence among us is not something to be feared. Have you noticed that,...
Read more

Monday, July 25, 2022

  Monday, July 25, 2022 Psalm 62; 63 Hosea 1 Romans 4:1-12 He only is my rock and my salvation: my strong tower, so that I shall not be moved. The prophecies of Hosea are rich with vivid imagery. Look at these names: firstly, “Hosea” means “salvation”. So too do the names Joshua and Jesus. Then Hosea has three children: “God scatters”, “Not pitied”, and “Not my people”. This is because the children are part of the marriage between Hosea and Gomer, which is an image God is showing to the nation. It is to our profit that God has used real-life events to communicate spiritual imagery and divine truths. We find it very easy to understand our relationship with God as being a faithful wife to a loving husband. We can reconcile this message with what Paul has to teach us today in Romans. He makes the very important observation that Abraham was given God's righteousness as a result of his faith before, not after, his circumcision. Again, this is God using real-life events...
Read more