security – The Noontimes

Psalm 16: Song of Trust and Security in God

Psalm 16: Song of Trust and Security in God

Sunday, October 26, 2025

From the mini-reflection in today’s MAGNIFICAT Morning Prayer (Cameron 369): “When seen in the light of Easter joy, our sins can weigh us down with discouragement. Yet God’s love does not deal in punishment as human vengeance does. God’s love disciplines and prunes us in order to free us – sometimes a painful process – so that we might not die like a withered branch but live and bear much fruit in the risen Christ”.

And from today’s Gospel which is John 15:12-17: It was not you who chose me I but who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.

We know how difficult change is yet we cannot avoid it for it is inevitable. We know how difficult life is; in one way or another we experience pain and sorrow daily. Because life is never free of suffering we might use this kind of pruning to find our best selves. We know that we exist for a purpose and that purpose is to find our skill set as kingdom builders. Perhaps we have the idea that we wish to design the architecture in this new kingdom when what God needs from us is that we serve as caretakers of the needy. Or maybe we hope to serve in some significant organizational role when instead God needs us as harvesters. Rather than focus on the specifics of our work or on the obstacles to attaining what we wish to attain, we might best focus on God alone instead, for only in God do we find a sheltering place that is secure, permanent and healing.

We do not chose God, God chooses us. In this we can be secure; this we can trust. God loves us through the pain of life and not in spite of it. Let us look beyond our immediate sorrows and desires to see where the boundary lines have fallen. Let us examine our circumstances to find that we are in pleasant places with a goodly heritage.

If we are troubled about the pruning that is taking place in our lives today, we may want to turn to God to ask him for the strength to trust God as we ought. Let us turn to this Psalm to pray . . .

I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. Amen.

A re-post from October 1, 2011.

Cameron, Peter John. “Prayer for the Morning.” MAGNIFICAT. 27.5 (2011): 369. Print.

Images from: http://christians-in-recovery.org/wp/2011/06/14/general-recovery/never-forsaken/

October 26, 2025

being our best selves, chosen by God, healing that lasts, John 15:12-17, kingdom-building, place of refuge, pruning, remaining in and of God, resurrection, security

2 Samuel 10: Open to Failure

2 Samuel 10: Open to Failure

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

2Sam-12-David-Attacks-the-Ammonites-m[1] — *Dorè: David Attacks the Ammonites*

We might take a lesson from both David and the Ammonites today; and each of these lessons will save us suffering if we can be open to their message. From the Ammonites who expect insult and war, we see that when we take a bellicose stance, we guarantee our suffering. It seems we humans are often eager to fulfill our own dark hope. Nestled against Israel’s eastern boundary, this tribe may have felt a kind of national inferiority. Along with the Moabites, these descendants of Lot struggled to maintain peace within and along their borders. Rightly or wrongly, the young king Hanun took an aggressive stance against David when he rejected David’s offer of amity and instead sought allegiance against Israel with the Arameans, another small kingdom to the north. All hope for independence is dashed and in the end these Ammonites – whose rudeness stirs the Israelites to revenge – becomes subject to Israel, and the Arameans stand down from their aggressive posture. We can never know if David somehow plotted in hopes that this scheme would bring him a vassal state; but we can easily see that the ultimate outcome for the Ammonites was the same – or perhaps even worse. When we expect insult and take a bellicose stance, we guarantee our suffering.

gerrit-van-honthorst-king-david-playing-the-harp-1611-1156x1407x300[1] — *Van Honthorst: King David Playing the Harp*

The major player in this reading is, of course, David and from him today we might learn: We are most open to failure when we are at our most secure. From the HarperCollins Bible Commentary, “If, on the one hand, we think of the Ammonite war as after the events of chap. 8, we are struck by the rapidity with which what appeared secure has again become a threat. If, on the other hand, we read the war account as a flashback, we may be struck by the irony of the context in which David’s adultery and murder have been set. It is at the very peak of his power, when YHWY is giving him victory wherever he goes (8:14), that the king most conspicuously fails. Security breeds insecurity; success incubates failure. It is as the gift of the kingdom is being made complete that YHWY’s chosen one chooses to grasp most rapaciously what is not his to grasp. In short, it is at his most secure that David turns out to be most open to failure”. (Mays 269)

We know this statement to be true if we take an honest look at our own lives and at the lives of friends and enemies. Cinema and literature reinforce the universal concept that we learn from our mistakes rather than our successes. We also know that we are most conciliatory, most ready to listen, and most open to change when we are faced with multiple obstacles; and that we are most closed, most deaf to common sense, and most eager to control our environment and others when we are at the peak of accomplishment. All of this is perhaps because we have forgotten some central truths: that God is the author of all good, that we can choose to enter into this goodness with God or we can choose reject God in the belief that we alone are responsible for all that has gone well in our lives. In short, it is at our most secure that we turn out to be most open to failure.

In David’s actions and thinking, and in the actions and thinking of the Ammonites, we discover the hidden pitfalls of success and promises of disappointment. We find an openness to failure that is certain to bring great pain and a guarantee of hardship and suffering. None of this suggests that success is something to be avoided or that failure is the mark of holiness. On the contrary, we experience happiness and joy despite our failures and along with our successes at precisely those times when we nurture an openness to God and forego our natural tendency to remain open to failure.

A re-post from September 12, 2011.

For more information about the Ammonites we might take a look at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01431b.htm and http://www.bible-history.com/geography/maps/map_of_ammonites_territory.html. OR https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ammonite

Mays, James L., ed. HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE COMMENTARY. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988. 269. Print.

Images from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gerard_van_Honthorst_-_King_David_Playing_the_Harp_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

October 7, 2025

Ammonites, Arameans, David, failure, Hanun, insult, security, success

Psalm 94: My Foot is Slipping

Psalm 94: My Foot is Slipping

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

My people, how can you be such stupid fools?
When will you ever learn?
God made our ears—can’t he hear?
He made our eyes—can’t he see? (GNT)

We continue our reflection on God’s ability and desire to remain in intimate relationship with us.

Blessed the one whom you guide, Lord,
whom you teach by your instruction,
To give rest from evil days,
while a pit is being dug for the wicked. (NABRE)

We continue to ponder our willingness – or unwillingness – to allow God’s protection and guidance to guide us.

If Adonai hadn’t helped me,
I would soon have dwelt in the land of silence.
When I said, “My foot is slipping!”
your grace, Adonai, supported me.
When my cares within me are many,
your comforts cheer me up. (CJB)

We continue to remember that God is the only secure place, the only sure refuge.

God was my high mountain retreat,
Then boomeranged their evil back on them:
for their evil ways he wiped them out,
our God cleaned them out for good. (MSG)

We continue to remind ourselves that God turns harm into goodness, and that God turns plots back upon plotters.

Today we spend time with Psalm 94 as we contemplate our reflection of God as a work of art, and why God’s loves us so dearly.

For a reflection on this psalm, click on the image from: https://stream.org/when-our-feet-start-to-slip-god-is-there-to-hold-us/

February 26, 2025

God guides, God protects, security

Jeremiah 32: A Pledge of Land

Jeremiah 32: A Pledge of Land

Monday, September 18, 2023

A Favorite from August 29, 2010.

God made a promise to Abraham to bring him descendants, renown and a land in which his progeny might be secure. In return, Abraham and his descendants were to obey God, worship him only, and keep to him always. Today we read about a time when the Promised Land is breaking into factions and falling into hostile hands. The covenant into which the chosen had entered has come undone; the descendants of Abraham have been taken into exile to be scattered by the four winds. All looks bleak and yet, God tells Jeremiah, redemption, healing, transformation and restoration are all possible. Indeed, all of this is at hand. This is how much God loves us.

Some few of us prefer the solitary life but most humans look for security in a landholding either individually or as part of a group. Private homes, rented and purchased apartments, communes, even tent cities of the homeless indicate this common yearning to have a place we call home and in which we might be secure. Many of us go home for a holiday. We look toward the end of a day when we might go home to kick off the worries of work to rejuvenate for the next morning. The people who had once known the protection and security of the pillar of fire and smoke in the desert now suffer the insecurity of not knowing where they will lay their head at night. They are vulnerable to the whims of capricious captors. The siege works have arrived at the city to breach it; the city will be handed over to the Chaldeans who are attacking it, amid sword, famine, and pestilence.

And what does God reply when his people ask to be rescued from these hopeless circumstances? Is anything impossible to me?

It is true that in the next portion of this story the people are handed over to their attackers as a consequence of their having abandoned the terms of their covenant with God. It is true that in this story God puts Israel out of sight for the incense they burned to Baal and the libations they poured to strange gods. It is also true that even as God promises to hand over the corrupt ones to the king of Babylon he also will gather the lost together from all lands to which they were banished. He will bring them back to the same place to settle them in safety. The Lord God says, they shall be my people and I will be their God. One heart and one way I will give them that they may hold me in awe always, to their own good and that of their children after them. I will make them an eternal covenant, never cease doing good to them; into their hearts I will put an overpowering love of me, that they may never depart from me. I will take delight in doing good to them: I will replant them firmly in this land, with all my heart and soul.

Perhaps the soul yearns for the security of a firm relationship with God just as the mind yearns for a pledge of land through which to be secure. Imagine what a world it might be if we sought the security of the pledge of the heart rather than a pledge of land.

Image from: https://www.heartlight.org/spurgeon/0630-pm.html

September 18, 2023

Abraham, Chaldeans, God does the impossible, God’s love, land, pledge of the heart, security

Proverbs 2: The Blessings of Wisdom

Friday, September 4, 2020

Proverbs 2

The Blessings of Wisdom

For the last two weeks we have spent time with the opening chapters of Proverbs reflecting on the nature and blessings of Wisdom. What does she look like? Where do we find her? How do we discern true Wisdom from false? What can be gained by sitting at Wisdom’s knee? Te answers to these questions are outlined in Chapter 2. And they are well worth sorting out and sharing.

One of the qualities of Wisdom is that she is both seen and felt. We turn our ear, incline our heart. We must listen and empathize. We must put aside old parameters and open ourselves to the suffering of others. We put away pat answers and old prejudices. We unbend our stiff necks. We thaw our hardened hearts.

Another of the qualities of Wisdom is that she is a treasure more valuable than any imaginable and yet she is under our noses at all times. She is elusive and yet as tactile as silver. She is mysterious and yet as clear as daylight. She brings the security of knowledge, understanding, counsel, rectitude, justice, honesty and discretion. She saves us from darkness, perversity, crooked paths and those who commit evil.

The meaning of these verses is clear. Those who succumb to the adulteress are lured away by smooth words. Those who look for easy relationships with no thought of commitment and no promise of constancy sink down to death. Closed self-importance and disdain for the pain of others. Self-reliance and a willful disregard for the vulnerable. These are the tendrils of unwise thinking that draw us into the crooked paths of the wicked.

Listening and opening ourselves to the suffering of others. Reliance on God and a willingness to change direction when called by God. By these paths will we find Wisdom. We may come upon her abruptly, or we may see her first from afar and struggle to reach her; but no matter the way our path will be made straight. hose who seek Wisdom are protected by God and by Wisdom herself. Of this we are assured.

The choice laid before us could not be more stark or more important: we may be cut off from the land and rooted out . . . or we may dwell in the land and remain in it. These are the blessings of Wisdom.T hey are many, transforming and vital. Let us turn the ear, let us incline the heart, and let us call out to Wisdom and seek her like silver. This is all the security we will ever need.

A re-post from September 7, 2013.

Image from: http://www.weidknecht.com/2013/02/proverbs-220.html

September 4, 2020

choice, listening, paths, security, smooth words, stiff necks and hard hearts, treasure

Tag: security

Psalm 16: Song of Trust and Security in God

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2 Samuel 10: Open to Failure

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Psalm 94: My Foot is Slipping

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Jeremiah 32: A Pledge of Land

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Proverbs 2: The Blessings of Wisdom

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