December 23rd, 2025

The focus of St. James Presbyterian Church’s weekly 30-minute Prayer Break Gathering is based on one of the scriptures of our PCUSA Daily Lectionary Psalm 85 once again.  However, today we will be focusing our thoughts on verses 4a, 10.
Psalm 85
1 LORD, you were favorable to your land;
you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
2 You forgave the iniquity of your people;
you pardoned all their sin. Selah
3 You withdrew all your wrath;
you turned from your hot anger.
4 Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
and put away your indignation toward us.
5 Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
6 Will you not revive us again,
so that your people may rejoice in you?
7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD,
and grant us your salvation.
8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak,
for God will speak peace to the people,
to the faithful, to those who turn to God in their hearts.
9 Surely God’s salvation is at hand for those who revere God,
so that divine glory may dwell in our land.
10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
12 The LORD will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness will go before the Holy One,
and will make a path for God’s steps.


Meditation: Advent Love That Waits With Us
Take a breath.
Not because everything is settled, not because your heart is light, not because the season demands joy—but because you are here. And being here matters. It matters that you have paused, even briefly, in the middle of your day. It matters that you have brought yourself as you are, not as you think prayer requires you to be. Prayer begins not with certainty, but with presence.
In the middle of December, many of us arrive carrying more than we planned. Some carry joy that feels real but fragile, joy we are almost afraid to name out loud. Some carry grief that has learned how to be quiet. Some carry the warmth of family gathering—voices, laughter, shared memories. And some carry the ache of empty chairs, strained relationships, or names we still say softly because saying them loudly would undo us.
This is not a failure of faith. This is the human condition in Advent.
And into this—not after it, not once we have resolved our feelings—God speaks. God speaks into the middle, into the overlap, into the place where hope and disappointment sit side by side.
The psalmist understands this. Psalm 85 begins with memory: “You restored the fortunes of your people. You forgave. You brought us back.” These are remembered experiences of love. And then, just as honestly, the psalmist asks the question many of us carry: “Will you be angry forever? Will you not restore us again?”
This is prayer that tells the truth about time—about the distance between what has been promised and what has arrived. It is prayer that trusts God enough to ask hard questions rather than offer easy praise.
This is Advent love. Not love that rushes past pain. Not love that explains everything away. Advent love waits with us inside the tension. It sits beside us rather than calling encouragement from a distance.
Advent does not deny disappointment. Advent dares to hope anyway—but it hopes honestly.
The psalm tells us that steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, that righteousness and peace will kiss—but it does not tell us when. What it promises instead is direction. Love is on the way. Love is moving toward us, even when we cannot yet feel its warmth. And sometimes, waiting itself becomes an act of faith.
So if you are tired today—tired in your body, tired in your spirit—you do not need stronger faith. You need rest. Rest is not a lack of trust; it is a form of trust. It is saying, “I do not have to hold everything together because I am held.”
If you are grieving today—whether that grief is new or long familiar—you do not need answers. You do not need explanations that tidy up loss. You need space. God does not rush grief. God waits with it.
And prayer, beloved, is not a demand placed on you. Prayer is not a performance or a test. Prayer is a place you are invited to lie down. It is where you stop carrying what has become too heavy and allow yourself to be honest about what you cannot manage on your own.
In prayer, you are allowed to bring what is unfinished. You are allowed to bring what still hurts. You are allowed to whisper the names of those you miss and speak the names of those you worry about. You are allowed to pray in fragments, in silence, in tears, in sighs. God understands all of it.
Prayer is where we let God carry what we cannot.
And sometimes—quietly, without announcing itself—prayer gives us courage. Not the courage of certainty, but the courage of connection.
Courage to pray not only for ourselves, but for others.
Because even in our own weariness, we are aware that we are not alone in need. We think of the one who is lonely this season. We think of the one who is sick or caregiving. We think of the one who is afraid—of the future, of loss, of change. We think of the one who feels forgotten or unseen. And prayer allows us to hold their lives alongside our own, not as an added burden, but as an act of love.
We pray for others not because we are strong, but because love has found us first. Love widens our concern even as it tends to our wounds. Love teaches us that intercession is not about having the right words; it is about refusing to let one another be alone.
So in this moment, I invite you—not to rush, not to fix—but to notice. Name one place where you need comfort. Not the place you think you should name, but the place that is real. And then—gently, without strain—name one person or place in need of love. Hold them both before God.
Because Advent love does not ask us to choose between joy and pain, between hope and honesty, between caring for ourselves and caring for others. Advent love teaches us how to hold these tensions without letting them harden us.
And as we return to our day—still waiting, still hoping, still loving—we do so more awake, more tender, more aware of our need for God and one another.
As love draws near, for what do you pray?

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