Daily Devotional Thought--From the Psalms

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The assigned Psalm for today is Psalm 20:


Psalm 20:1 TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.

May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
2 May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!
3 May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah
4 May he grant you your heart's desire
and fulfill all your plans!
5 May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the LORD fulfill all your petitions!
6 Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand.
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
8 They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.
9 O LORD, save the king!
May he answer us when we call.

From Reading the Psalms with Luther:
The 20th psalm is a psalm of prayer. It prays specifically for emperors, kings, princes, governors, and all those who sit in any seat of authority. The psalm prays that God would grant them grace to rule peacefully and well, giving them good fortune and victory over their enemies. For wherever good earthly order is established by the reason and power of governors and princes, people do not earnestly and heartily pray for them. So that people might pray for them, the psalm declares that only the greatest fool, totally blind, would presume to rule land and people out of his own head. This psalm belongs in the Second Commandment, as do all the psalms of prayer, in which one call on God's name. Psalm 20 is in the Third Petition (of the Lord's Prayer), that God's will and not the devil's might be done.

What a fitting psalm indeed for our situation today.

And so we pray:
Thanks be unto You, O God, King of kings, because You have granted a good and a free government to our land. What You have given graciously preserve to us and our children. And grant that the civil liberty that we enjoy may remind us to seek that spiritual and everlasting freedom which is found alone in the kingdom of Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.