We Will Call on Your Name, a Reflection on Psalm 80:17-19

I've been looking at these verses for a while this morning. I'm thinking about them as prayers by a people who had seen disaster, and in their distress, pled with God for help. I've considered what the compilers of the lectionary intended by using this psalm as a response to this week's reading from Isaiah. A child is promised, and, before that child grows up, the enemy will be defeated.

And, I'm reading these verses considering their message to a Christian in the fourth week of Advent. We are looking forward to the one whom God has made strong. We ask for and need to be restored, to be saved.

May we also pray sincerely the words, "We will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name."

We receive the rescue as a gift not as a reward for our efforts. Then we are able to respond to that gift.