Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…

…Oh, look upon us we pray,
    for we are all your people.
10 Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
    even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you,
    has been burned with fire,
    and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
12 After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back?

Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

The word ”Oh” is expressive of deep anguish. It is the cry of someone who is in profound pain. Isaiah grieved over the spiritual state of his people, and its terrible consequences.

I venture to suggest that we are seeing such a departure from God’s Word right now, in many parts of the church in the western world, that it should inject an ”Oh” into our prayers, if it hasn’t already.

Sometimes you don’t know what to say other than ”Oh God…Oh God…” The agony is so deep you don’t know how to fully articulate it. But God knows our hearts. He understands; and His pain is infinitely greater.

A reader response to recent article in ‘The Spectator’ included these words:

‘Guess what, a sin soaked society is not going to be impressed by a sin soaked Church. Dark is not challenged by dark but light – in other words when the Church stands up for its Biblical values and proclaims Jesus, then the world will listen. Otherwise, the Church just becomes a branch of the social services.’

Yes, there is much to make us feel aggrieved. But thank God we are not reduced to hand-wringing, for we have the gift of intercession.

”When all things seem against us,to drive us to despair,

we know one gate is open, one ear will hear our prayer.” (From the hymn: ‘Today thy mercy calls us’, by Oswald Allen).