“LOVING FATHER…Close the door of hate
and open the door of love all over the world.
Let kindness come with every gift, and good desires with every greeting.
Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings,
and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.”
~ A Christmas Prayer, Robert Louis Stevenson
.
What does that mean, Lord… to sing a song of Israel over someone? I’d mulled that question over, as He breezed a fresh, sweet zephyr across my prayer journal that December 28 night…
Going first to the dictionary, I found dazzling word ore, a golden bowl of prayer incense just waiting to be poured out…
Israel: Regarded as the chosen people of Jehovah, by virtue of the covenant of Jacob.
Reading that seemingly simple statement, words falling like snowflakes streaming beneath lamplight glow, quieting my spirit to listen to His…. I understood with awe how this one thought deepened a theme already threaded and spun through my prayers…
Prayers for the someone who’d confided, despite gaining all the gold the world has offered, he never quite felt worthy…good enough… in truth, often felt lost… Someone I’d been praying Ephesians 3:14-20 kind of understanding of the height and breadth and length of God’s love for…
“O Father,” I breathed… “This is so beautiful – I see You are telling me to sing for joy over him, that Your love makes him (as all of us) chosen of You! To sing out prayers that he would understand that… and what it means to know he is Your beloved!”
Looking up the covenant of Jacob, God led me to the mine in Genesis 28.
There, the story tells of promise God spoke into existence for Jacob, for you, for me, for those we pray for… through Jacob’s dream:
“I am the Lord, God of your father Abraham and God of Isaac. I will give you the land…all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you…will fulfill my promise…”
Powerful words that echoed back to some year-long prayers that God would restore something beautiful that seemed to be stolen, bring this one back to the ‘land’ He had given him… and how He was…
Now breathing a new dimension, excitement, leading into those prayers…
“To sing a prayer song of Israel for this one, O Lord,” I wrote, “is saying… Your covenant also applies to him (to all of us). To sing of your blessing on his life. To sing over him that you are his God. That You are using him to bless others. That You’ve promised to, long to, bring him close again to You…
“To sing prayers of your beautiful desire to be with him at all times, to watch over him and his loved ones, wherever they go. That You are bringing him back to the ‘land’ (restoring life and gifts) You gave to him…”
It wasn’t that this theme was new…only giving brighter, clarity-cut facets to my prayers.
Tears blurred as I turned to Numbers 21:17 to read more about Jacob’s covenant and found… one most splendiferous song of Israel…engraved for us there forever…
“Then Israel sang this song: Spring up O well! Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug…”
Reverberating an old praise song from college days…like streams of living water, glistening across the years…
“Spring up, O well, within my soul. Spring up, O well, and make me whole. Spring up, O well, and give to me…thy life, abundantly!”
As if not enough treasure to pray… my eyes fell back to the titles given to the chapters just preceding this song — “The water of cleansing” and “Water from the rock” — describing procedures for sprinkling the unclean with cleansing water. The Lord tells Moses to speak to a rock, that before their eyes, water will pour out… the waters of Meribah… where the Lord showed His holiness. “Gather the people together, and I will give them water…,” the Lord instructed, and Israel sang his song…
Today, re-reading all this in that journal Christmas… here just over 10 years later… I think of the one I was lifting up…how he is just recently gone and in my thoughts of heaven this year. How I find heavenly hope written there, to answer so many of these prayers.
I hear again the prayer warriors of Bedford falls… singing their songs of love up for one lonely and heartbroken man… lifting him up into God’s promises… I recall the beautiful gifts sent in answer. Because they prayed...
And how even as a child watching that scene, I felt the beauty of God breathing His prayers into our hearts because they were on His heart first… to know the wonderful life He has planned to shine in each of our stories.
Just as the ones on our hearts… are on His even more…
And… thinking of all those now….
I’d like to sing some of those songs of Israel I wrote down back then…pray them for others who need to know His covenant heart today…songs maybe you will join in singing over your own George Baileys this Christmas and new year… A few more handblown ornaments of remembrance…
(to be continued…)
© Pam Depoyan
Read Part 1 to this post here: Christmas Prayers, Like Ornaments of Handblown Glass – Part 1
and Part 3 here: Christmas Eve Prayers – Part 3
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photos: http://www.fotosearch.com
Writing... Apples of Gold 
SUch an exquisite post, Pam, and I love how you have woven throughout singing. Christmas is a tiem for singing, and I think of the songs the shepherds and angels and Mary sang. Everyone was singing! God rejoices over each wonderful life whom He has created with singing (Zeph. 3:17). I love how you sang a song of Israel over your friend. When we sing over someone in prayer, we are really rejoicing over him. Thank you, dearest wordsinger, for the words you sing here with such joy. I feel sung over, and I feel blessed.
merry Christmas, Pam
Love,
Lynn
I’m so glad this blessed you, too, Lynn. All of this came out of prayer and words that God seemed to speak into my prayers… so many times He has led me that way. To think of praying as singing His blessings over others, and as you said, rejoicing over… Writing this tonight, trying to put it into words that really show how rich this is (though I’m not sure I was able to), I was thinking too of specific people you and I are lifting up. How a song of Israel is what their hearts need… to truly understand how God has chosen them, all His covenant of Love encompasses for their life…That is the deep healing that will move mountains that seem there right now (the work of the Holy Spirit). I love Zeph 3:17, by the way. 🙂 I love the word (I think it is in Job?) that talks about the morningstars singing at the foundation of the world, indicating that God sang it into existence… Merry Christmas!
Yes, exactly. I was thinking of these dear ones when I wrote it, and I will continue to sing joy into their lives. O I love your concept here about God’s voice *singing* the world into existence. I had never thought about it that way before. Just beautiful. And so it is only fitting that His Son was sung into existence too! Thank you Pam for your deep thoughts.
Love that about his being sung into birth here… I heard something similar on the radio the other day. Music is certainly wondrous. Thanks for yours too… 🙂 I saw a report once on Good Morn America about how scientists have “proof’ that each of our brains and bodies are ‘wired’ with our own music. Like God put a unique “song” into each of us. Interesting. I love that! (If you get a chance, go to my Portfolio page at the top of the blog and scroll to the article I wrote for Pray Magazine – Sing God’s Heart over Someone’s Life… It is abbreviated from what I actually wrote, but the gist is there. I think I may post something on that too… something God spoke into my thoughts about praying the Psalms too… I think you’d enjoy the idea behind that one too )
Oh L love that. Wired w/ our own music–almost like God sings His own unique songs to us as individuals and we sing them back. (Now, my husband–who does NOT sing–has his own unique song indeed. Just ask him about it!) Thanks for this rich sharing, Pam. I can hear those “herald angels” singing inside my head even as I post.
Pam~~
a beautiful Christmas gift for all of us to treasure. I would love to go on about it forever but this Pain in my neck came roaring back around 3:00am and its been so hard to get it to calm down.
please know I will be thinking of you and wishing a day filled with gentle peace and love.
martha
Thank you, Martha… I am so glad this touches you so. I am praying for you too. Do you get Reader’s Digest by any chance? I just read an article about a woman who invented a unique medical device to help her daughter alleviate pain very similar to yours, caused by an accident. Sounds miraculous – neurolumen. The article (Mother of Invention) is on page 14 in the January 2013 issue. If you can’t get it, I can mail you a copy… just couple of pages.
Like Jesus spoke to the wind and the storm, I pray “Peace be still!” to your neck pain, in Jesus name… and peace through our Jehovah Shalom on your body and rest tonight.
What a rich find of spiritual gold! Thank you for sharing your treasures. Christmas Peace and Joy to you!
Thank you for those words, and for sharing your rich finds with me too, Sylvia. Christmas peace and joy to you too! And continued blessing on your recovered eyesight!
what a beautiful post! thank you for sharing. you have blessed me. a blessed and joyful Christmas season to you!
I’m so glad, Peggy. Joyful Christmas to you too!
I just wanted to stop by and say Merry Christmas, Pam! I’m thinking of you. Love to you.
Thanks, Diane. Blessed Christmas to you too!
I will carry this prayer in my heart all year long this year. It doesn’t have to be Christmas in December but in every month.
Thanks Pam. Bless your kind heart thinking about others. The fire of His love just comes naturally to those who has His 11th commandment in keeping.
May this be our prayer, each one of us for this year. Amen!
I’m so glad, Lolita… no it is not limited to December. 🙂 A song of Israel over all of us! (Did you see that there’s a part 3 to this too?
Thank you for all your kind words. I bless Him for your compassionate heart too.