Isaiah 63:15 - 64:12 - Longing and Lament Answered

Take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah.

The book of Isaiah.

And we'll be in chapter 63 and chapter 64.

Sadly, this is the penultimate time that I'll be saying that.

Next week will be my last message in Isaiah, and we'll head off to London, and Micah will be closing off our book series.

It's gonna be hard to say goodbye to Isaiah.

This passage of scripture is particularly moving.

It's moved me for the past few weeks as I've meditated upon it.

I thought particularly those of us who might be in a place of spiritual depression, to use Martin Lloyd-Jones' condition.

Not depression in a clinical sense, but a spiritual depression in which our soul is not where it should be.

And oftentimes when that happens, we haven't moved.

We are in the same place that we've been week after week.

We still show up to church, we still say the right words, we still nod when the scriptures are spoken in the right way.

But we know deep down inside there's something wrong.

There's something just not right about us.

We feel the distance between ourselves and God that once was so close.

We feel the thinness of our souls.

And we know that there's an ache in our heart that longs to be back with God, but we're filled with discouragement and puzzlement because even though we're not outwardly rebellious, and even though we're not faithless, we're just worn down and drifting, and oftentimes we don't know the way back.

How do I get back to where I was?

Is often the question I hear as a pastor.

We know we've wondered, and but we don't know how to return.

We don't know how to come back from where we're at.

And that feeling is not an unusual one.

In fact, it's the very condition of the people that Isaiah is writing to in Isaiah 63 and 64.

This section of Isaiah that we're in right at the moment is a section in which Isaiah is speaking to the future, to a generation of people who have already gone through the Babylonian exile and are now returning from that exile and coming back to the wasteland that is called Jerusalem and Judea.

They've been carrying the weight of their failure for many, many years.

And they're now staring at the ruin that's called Jerusalem.

And they're wondering a very important question is God ever going to draw near to us again?

And so they're weak, they're discouraged, they don't know even how to pray, they don't know how to interpret their own story, and they're unsure if they can ever move forward again out of all of these decades of dryness.

Long before they ever existed, though, Isaiah steps into their shoes.

Isaiah prays a prayer on their behalf in order to instruct them how to find God coming back from exile.

It's a remarkable passage.

He places a prayer into their mouths and teaches them how to return to God.

And that's why this passage is so important for us today.

Because you may be looking at your life and realizing that something's broken, but you don't know how to fix it.

You know that there's a distance between you and God, but you don't know how to close it.

Well, Isaiah 63 and 64 shows us just how to do that.

It shows us what the awakening of our soul is like, it shows us what an honest return is like, and it shows us a God who meets us in our distance with a mercy that far exceeds our ability to perceive.

And so Isaiah guides us, just like he guided them, he guides us to show us how to return to God, not simply rebuilding what's lost, but learning to speak to him with honesty and humility and hope.

Here, as we look at these passages, we'll understand how God's truth awakens us and how it reshapes our understanding and how his mercy draws us into a future that's worth living for.

So let's take a journey through this.

I want to give us three points.

First of all, that this is a prayer of honesty, that this is a prayer of humility, and that this is a prayer of hope.

And so Isaiah begins that journey right here with a people who are beginning to be honest in their prayer.

And then honesty begins with an awakening, an awakening.

An awakening when they start to feel the distance, they start to feel the separation.

Take a look at verses 13 to 16 of chapter, 15 and 16 of chapter 63.

Look down from heaven and see, from your lofty home, holy and beautiful.

This is the people speaking to God.

Where is your zeal and your might, your yearning and your compassion are withheld from me?

And yet you are our father, even though Abraham does not know us and Israel doesn't recognize us.

You, Lord, are our father.

Your name is our redeemer from ancient times.

Now, these are not the words of the people who have been walking closely with God and then all of a sudden find themselves in a place of discouragement.

Not at all.

In fact, these are people who have lived such a distance from God for such a long period of time that they've almost forgotten what nearness to God actually looks like.

For generations they've wandered.

For generations they've treated God as peripheral, and they've established patterns of resisting God, of grieving his spirit, of treating his covenant as something they could pick up and put down at will.

They've lived on the very edges of obedience, drifting steadily away from God, from father to son to son to son to son.

But now, but now all of a sudden, they feel it.

They feel it.

And they look at their life and they look at their life as a nation and they realize this isn't what should be.

The condition I'm in is not how this ought to be.

And what was once very, very tolerable for them, not even talking to God, now becomes unbearable.

This absence of God that they had completely enjoyed becomes excruciating to them and they plead with God.

There's something pressing on them with a spiritual weight.

They look around and they see the drift that's been caused.

They recognize that their worship had grown thin generations ago, that their leaders had lost the way, that the temple had been defiled, the people had forgotten their calling.

So now they do the one thing they haven't done for a long, long time.

They turn their attention to God and they ask God to look at them.

Look down from heaven and see.

This is the first cry of a people who are waking up.

Who are waking up from a long spiritual sleep, the sound of a heart that's starting to soften, that's this first stirring to their conscience that's been seared and ignored.

And almost surprisingly, and here you'll notice that they they reach for a name that they haven't used in a long time.

Yet you're our father.

Though Abraham doesn't know us and Israel doesn't acknowledge us, you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old, is your name.

Right at the moment, these are words that are just starting to come back into their vocabulary.

And they know that their spiritual forefathers, Abraham and Jacob, they wouldn't even recognize them.

All those years when those men lived in trust and faith and obedience, well, those are a long way away from there.

These guys wouldn't recognize their children.

But no matter how unlike their fathers they might be, they reach for a deeper reality.

They're reaching down and they're saying, you know what?

We may have changed, we may not be like Abraham, we might not be like Jacob, but God, you haven't changed.

You're still our father.

And there's this honesty that's beginning to awaken in them as they speak to God.

It's the first sign of hope in them.

Because now these people are no longer indifferent to God.

The distance that was once normal is now painful to them.

But beneath all of it isn't is a truth that they can't yet see, and we'll get to, that this father is going to do things for them far beyond what they could imagine.

And this is where the passage speaks very, very clearly to us.

To those who might be today drifting in their hearts, still here, still singing, still saying amen when amen is yanked out of you.

But you know deep down inside something's really wrong.

Something's really, really missing in your soul.

It speaks to us who remember seasons when we were near to God and know that today is not that day.

And it tells us when we can't quite put our finger on what's wrong, how to begin.

And Isaiah teaches us this: that it's very simple.

Feel the distance and bring that distance to God.

Recognize you're not where you should be, but also recognize God is always who He was, even in the best of your days.

Start there.

Start with this honesty that wakes up and says, Lord, I feel far from you.

Lord, I'm not where I should be, but you're still my father.

That hasn't changed at all.

That's where this prayer begins, this prayer of honesty.

And it moves, interestingly, as we progress through this, through stages of understanding.

Because this awakening of honesty brings with it some confusion.

It's an honest prayer, but it's a confused prayer.

And this brings us into the second part of this prayer of honesty in verses 17 to 19.

Listen to these words.

Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways?

You harden our hearts so that we do not fear you.

Return because of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.

Your holy people had a possession for a little while, but our enemies have trampled down your sanctuary.

We have become like those you never ruled, like those who did not bear your name.

What are we hearing here?

We're hearing people pray with a spiritual grogginess, is what we're hearing.

They're waking up, but the room is still dark.

They're feeling the distance, but they don't even yet understand what created that distance.

Their hearts are beginning to stir, but their interpretation of what's been happening is still shaped by their drift.

They don't quite get it.

And so they pray these prayers, honest prayer, but wrong.

Lord, why do you make us stray?

Lord, why do you harden our hearts so that we don't fear you?

Now, these aren't words of defiance, these are words of disorientation.

Not every time somebody prays this way is it a prayer of rebellion.

It can be a prayer of confusion.

And what's wrong with them is that they're instinctively placing the blame on something outside of themselves rather than looking inward and finding the source of the problem here.

And tragically, they're putting the blame on God.

Now, perhaps you've prayed this way.

Lord, why didn't you stop me before I got here?

You ever pray that prayer?

Lord, you're sovereign.

You could have stopped me.

Lord, why didn't you intervene sooner?

Lord, why did you let things get so bad?

It's the exact same prayer.

These these these people to pray.

It's a confused prayer.

Honest, but confused.

Their hearts are starting to wake up.

They're trying to make sense of the ruin around them, but all they see is what's going on around here, and they're saying, God, why did it get like this?

The temple is trampled, the cities are desolate, everything is emptiness, the ruins are there.

And they even say to God at the very end of this chapter, we're like those you've never ruled, like those who've never even taken your name.

We're just like another one of those nations that some big ruling power has taken over and squashed.

We're just that.

What they're saying to the Lord to the Lord is, Lord, we look more like the outsiders than the outsiders are.

And in a sense, they're right.

But they're right for all the wrong reasons.

Because what they're looking for is for God to fix the world around them.

What God's going to do is fix the world that's in them.

Okay?

They're looking at the trampled temple and saying, what a tragedy, God.

Why did that happen?

And they're not looking to the fact that they trampled the covenant themselves.

They're looking at the ruins of Jerusalem, but they haven't looked at the ruins of their rebellious lives yet.

So this is the spiritual condition of a people who are now awakening, but still coming into the fullness and understanding of what repentance is all about.

They feel the ache of it all, but they misread the cause.

They misinterpret it.

But wonderfully, the confusion is not the end of the story here.

And their misreading is not the final word, because this prayer is not over.

But Isaiah speaks on their behalf so that when this time comes, they might even know how to pray.

Because Isaiah's already put it here for them to reach for.

And what he's telling them is you have to speak your aching heart into the void.

He's guiding them toward clarity and pushing them closer and closer to the place where they need to be.

And so when we feel far from God, we do exactly what the Israelites do.

We look around at our circumstances and we say, this is just overwhelming.

This is troubling.

My prayers are empty.

What's the problem?

And we look outside of ourselves and we try to find the problem out there.

Churches do this too, in the middle of a declining spiritual vitality, and assume that the problem must be external.

Well, we just need to hold on, the culture's shifting.

As if that was the answer.

People are busy, the world is dark.

And we look up at God and say, God, why didn't you do something sooner?

It's not a harsh question, it's an honest one.

It's a confused one.

These people are feeling the absence of God, but they haven't quite understood that that's because of their own wanderings, not God's inability to work on their behalf.

And so there has to be more here.

And this prayer of honesty moves from an awakening through confusion into desire.

And that brings us into the next chapter in the first five verses.

Because now we see the confusion beginning to lift, and their questions are starting to give way to longing, and their bewilderment is starting to give way to desire.

And these people who have drifted and have been unconcerned about it are now yearning for God in a way they've never done for years.

Listen to these words.

If only you would tear the heavens open and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence.

Just as fire kindles brushwood and fire boils water to make your name known to your enemies, so that nations would tremble at your presence.

When you did awesome works that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains quaked at your presence.

From ancient time no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for him.

You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right.

They remember you in all your ways.

Now they desire God.

Now they want him to act.

This confusion is beginning to become clarity.

And they're praying these vivid words.

Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down.

Wasn't many years ago they would say, please keep away from us, God.

And what they're praying is not just some polite request, is it?

Some carefully measured petition.

No, this is a cry of people who have felt the aching distance of God for so long that they're screaming in their bones for it to be different now.

And notice the imagery here.

The sky ripping apart like a curtain, mountains trembling in earthquakes and fire consuming everything that's dry and brittle.

And in verse 3, they talk about that.

When you did awesome works that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains quaked at your presence.

What are they doing here?

What is Isaiah pointing them back to?

What are they remembering?

The remembering Sinai is what they're remembering.

They're remembering that time when God humbled the most powerful nation on earth at the time, Egypt and the Pharaoh, when he had laid them low in humiliation, and when he had parted the waters and allowed his people to be free from slavery, walking on dry land, where he carried them through the wilderness and brought them to the place where his very voice was heard, and mountains literally shook, and fire filled the sky.

The remembering the God who descended in fire, who split the sea, who shook the nations, and who made himself known in power.

And they're saying, God, do that again.

Do that again.

Be that same powerful force now.

But here's the problem look at how they pray.

They pray this verse two to make your name known to your enemies so that the nations would tremble at your presence.

They want God to fix the world.

God's going to fix them.

They want the mountains to shake.

God wants their hearts to shake.

They want a restored land and a restored dignity.

God wants restored hearts and a restored people.

But God's going to do something more for them than they know.

Take a look at verse 4.

In verse 4, they speak from of ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for him.

Little do they know that this is the hinge of the whole prayer right here.

This is where their longing brushes up against God's unbounded, unimaginable mercy.

They don't know it yet, but it's there.

The remembering of God who intervenes, and they're asking him to act in the way that he did before.

But God doesn't want to just repeat the past.

As dramatic as it was.

They want God to come down in power, but God's going to come down in person to this earth.

You see, what they're longing for is really just a shadow of what God's actually going to do.

The substance they can't even grab hold of here.

They feel this emptiness, they feel the thinness of their prayers, they feel the weight of their choices, and they're saying, Lord, we need you to break through here.

Lord, come near to us again.

Break through all of this hardness.

Shake what has grown cold.

Do what only you can do, Lord.

That's a real longing.

But it's still mistaken.

Because what they want is a return to what was rather than a reach for what will be.

And we'll get to that in just a second.

This prayer of honesty continues and unfolds.

Isaiah is teaching them through prayer how to address their own hearts.

And so this honesty that begins with an awakening, that moves through this fog of confusion, that pushes them into an honest prayer of desire now gets to the heart because it's now in the second movement, a prayer of humility.

Take a look at verse 5 at the very end of it.

But we have sinned, and you were angry.

How can we be saved if we remain in our sins?

All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment, and all of us wither like a leaf, and all our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

No one calls on your name, striving to take a hold of you.

For you've hidden your face from us and made us melt because of our iniquities.

You see, they finally understand what the real problem is.

It's no longer God, why did you harden our hearts?

It's now God, we have hard hearts.

We've done this to ourselves.

This is devastating admission of their sin.

And it's the humility that they're expressing.

Lord, and the ESV puts it this way: we have been in our sins a long time.

This isn't some new problem.

This has been going on for a long stretch, but we're just now aware of it.

We have been the problem the whole time, and now I see it.

I see myself for what I should have seen before.

Sin has deceived me to think the problem was out there and up there, but I now see it, it's in here.

It's me.

We have become like one who's unclean.

All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

They feel the distance now that they have created.

And they own it.

They recognize that their own iniquities have shaped their present, have weakened them, and have carried them further than they ever intended to go.

The problem isn't God.

The problem isn't circumstances.

The problem aren't the enemies out there.

The problem's me.

Not my mama, not my papa, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

And so Isaiah here is bringing this diagnosis to their hearts, and he's lifting up the mirror.

And he's saying, Take a look.

What's your problem?

Look in the mirror.

That's your problem.

It's us.

And so he invites them and us to stop explaining the distance in terms of circumstances, to consider more deeply the issues of our heart that have grown cold and accustomed to taking God's name in vain, emptiness.

To let Scripture name what we haven't named, sin.

But also to believe that this isn't the end of the story.

Because look at the posture of humility in the next phrase.

Yet, Lord, you are our Father.

We're the clay.

You are the potter.

We're all the works of your hands.

Lord, do not be terribly angry or remember our iniquity forever.

Please look.

All of us are your people.

It's a plead for mercy, isn't it?

It's a posture of humility.

We're just dirt.

We're just clay, Lord.

We're really nothing better than that.

You're our Father.

Please, as we yield ourselves to you, shape us.

We can't make ourselves beautiful.

But you can, Lord.

You can.

And please, please remember your mercy to us.

They're appealing to the very character of God here.

Remembering that he's the Redeemer.

Remembering that He's the Father.

Remember He's the one that moved in power.

Remember He's the one who has compassion.

Remember He's the one who has mercy.

Lord, please look, we're your people.

As much as we didn't want to admit it, as much as we tried to deny it, as much as we acted like we weren't, we are.

Don't forget us.

They acknowledged their failure without excusing it.

And now they're affirming that they belong to God, but they're not using it as a presumptuous way to live their life carelessly and callously.

This is a heart of surrender.

This is the yielding of their heart.

It stopped resisting and it's begging to be able to trust.

This is where Isaiah wants to bring our hearts when we feel cold and distant, to awaken to the realization that we've been distant, to try to move through the confusion of our understanding of our circumstances and the interpretation of those things.

To get to the place where we want what we should have always wanted, God to come down and do something.

But now the channel is open.

It's open because we have recognized the problem isn't out there, it's in here.

And we're submitting ourselves in humility to Him and asking Him to show mercy.

We're in the right spot when we get there.

Now, I give this last point as a prayer of hope.

And it may not sound like hope as we look at this, but there's more than enough hope to hang on to.

Take a look at this last section of this, beginning in verse 10.

Your holy cities have become a wilderness.

Zion has become a wilderness.

Jerusalem, a desolation.

Our holy and beautiful temple, where our ancestors praised you, has been burnt down.

And all that was dear to us lies in ruins.

Lord, after all this, will you restrain yourself?

Will you keep silent and afflict us severely?

This prayer that began with a lament.

Where is your zeal, God?

Where's your might?

Moved into a prayer of remembrance.

You are our Father.

It's deepened into confession.

We have been in our sin a long time.

It's moved into surrender.

You are the potter and we're the clay.

And now it gathers up all that honesty and all that humility, and it lays it before God in one final prayer.

Lord, will you remember us still?

You see, these losses aren't just historical losses.

They're actually emblems of what had been an inward collapse.

They're looking at ruined Jerusalem, ruined temple, ruined cities, desolation, all of it emblematic of the desolation of their own soul.

And they're now crying out.

And they turned to God with the only hope that they have left.

Will you restrain yourself after all these things, O Lord?

Because if you do, I'm done with.

I have nowhere to go.

They grab a hold of God as the only hope left.

It's no longer trying to finagle an alliance with Assyria or Babylon or Egypt.

It's no longer puffing their chest about how righteous they are, and all the other nations are just idol worshiping fools.

It's none of that anymore.

They can't lay their strength anywhere but before God and say, God, if you don't do something, we're done.

We're done.

It's over.

And they're not exactly sure if God will do it here.

Maybe it is too late.

They see the ruins and they wonder, maybe this just is the end.

But they're still gonna pray.

They're still gonna pray.

They're still gonna ask God to rebuild.

To rebuild this earthly city, to restore their temple, to return them to what once was.

And God is going to say to them, that's not good enough.

That's not good enough.

That's all you want.

Oh, I I can put a building up, no problem.

God and Son Incorporated, best construction company going.

I can put a building up.

That's what you want?

I can rebuild Jerusalem.

That's what you want?

It's not good enough.

It's not good enough.

Look at verse 4.

From ancient times, no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for him.

They're now starting to wait on him.

That's the last verse of this chapter.

They are waiting on him now.

The problem is they're not looking forward enough.

They're still looking back a bit.

And what they don't know it yet is they're asking for God's mercy, but they don't know the depths of God's mercy yet.

They're asking for God to build them a future.

They don't know what that future is yet.

They have no idea just how great a God they're actually talking to.

Do you?

Let's go to 1 Corinthians and finish there.

1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

Paul is speaking to a church that feels just as small and weak as the people of Israel, just as overwhelmed as they are, just as tempted to measure God by the things that they can see.

And probably like the Corinthians, in the midst of their troubles, are feeling weak, and what they want is visible power.

What they want is visible wisdom.

What they want is visible vindication.

And so Paul speaks to this church at Corinth who's grasping at worldly wisdom, who's looking for worldly power and answers, who's thinking that the explosion on the stage shows them the reality of God.

And he says to them, in verse 6 of chapter 2, we speak a wisdom among the mature, not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing.

On the contrary, we speak God's hidden wisdom in a mystery, a mystery God predestined before the ages for our glory.

You want glory, it's coming.

But it's not going to come the way you think it's going to come.

None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But as it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived, God has prepared these things for those who love him.

They wanted a rebuilt temple, a rebuilt city, a rebuilt national identity.

They wanted to be able to puff themselves before the nations and show themselves strong again.

And God says, No, it's not good enough.

And Paul tells the Corinthian church just what Isaiah was trying to push the people of Israel toward coming back from the exile.

That God is going to answer and he's going to act and he's going to give you a future far beyond what you've longed for.

And Paul quotes Isaiah here because we as believers ought to know a little bit about what I has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the hearts of men.

What he's saying here is that God has revealed himself on earth in Jesus the Christ.

And that God himself has gone to the cross in order to save sinners.

And that he broke through the grave in the resurrection.

And that Jesus ascended into the heavens and sent forth his spirit on this earth through the proclamation of the gospel to transform dead souls into living, living children of God.

Oh, you want glory?

You can keep your fog machines on your platforms.

Glory is here in Christ.

And Paul is saying this unimaginable future that the Israelites longed to see as they begged, finally, in hope, the mercy of God.

Church, you're seeing it.

You're seeing what I has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered in the hearts of men.

Look at the next verse, verse 10.

God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit.

Since the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

We know that when a believer dies, they shall live.

We know that this whole creation that groans together and travails and pain until now will be liberated from decay.

We know that we will see Jesus and we will be like him.

We know that God will dwell with his people and wipe away every one of our tears.

We know.

And those are the things we know.

Imagine the things we don't know yet.

What the apostle said, we look through a mirror darkly, but then face to face, it does not yet appear what we shall be.

But when he appears, we know that we'll be like him.

What about those things that I has not yet seen, nor ear yet heard, nor entered in the hearts of men yet, that go beyond the resurrection, that go beyond the new creation, that go beyond being transformed into the likeness of Christ, that go beyond seeing God face to face.

What can those things be like?

This is where the prayer is moving them.

Not just to fix themselves to be like I used to be, but far better.

Far better.

This prayer ends with a question.

It's a question that people can't answer.

It's a plea for God's mercy.

And they're just saying, God, it would be wonderful if we could just pick up the pieces a little bit.

And maybe get on with life a little bit.

If we could just sort of have a home again, and maybe a place to go for worship.

It'd be nice if we could just do that.

And God says, Really?

I want to do so much more for you.

So much more for you.

What is this telling us?

Our hearts.

Repentance is not just getting back to where you were.

Repentance and change and transformation of your heart out of the darkness and depth of your distance with God is getting back into the place where you're cast forward in hope.

And your heart is reaching toward that now.

Your yearnings are not just to be better once again, but to be completely whole.

Completely whole.

And so he's calling us to this life that's ahead of us.

What a wonderful prayer this is, right?

A prayer that Isaiah preached before the people even lived.

So that when the day came when they would wake up from their rebellion and iniquity, they would have something already there to shape their hearts.

And so that we might have something to shape ours too.

And so we might see that God is more, much, much more than a God who just says, Well, yeah, well, come on back in.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you.

Thank you for this honest, humble, hopeful prayer.

And we thank you that it reveals you to us.

That we're invited into your mercy as our Father, that you are our Redeemer, and that whatever emptiness we feel right now, as real as it might be, is not the end of the story.

And that this ache of our soul is an echoing of you who is going to draw us to yourself.

Father, I pray.

That we might in this capture a better understanding.

Because the day will come when you will rend the heavens and make them new.

And you will not come down, you will draw us up.

And you will bring us into a place where there's no need of a temple, because you will be with your people, and we will see you.

Father, I pray for any brother and sister in Christ here whose hearts have been in a place of drawdown and distancing from you, who have dried up and wondered if they could ever come back.

Lord, I pray you'd reveal your mercy to them in Christ and anchor their heart in the hope that's found in Jesus.

And Father, I pray for anyone here who's walked into this place and trembled, wondering if they would ever be at home in such a foreign place as a church.

Father, I pray that you'd help them to see that you have received all the people around them, and we're no different than they.

Simply sinners.

We've been saved by grace, and if they call on the Lord Jesus Christ, they too shall.

And Father, we pray for them.

And in all of this, Lord, we pray that you would glorify yourself, that you would give us that wondrous understanding of your mercy.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.