October 14, 2025 Prayer Break Gathering

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 86.1-13a .  Today we will be focusing our thoughts on verses 1 and 12-13a.
Psalm 86
1   Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me,
          for I am poor and needy.
2   Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you;
          save your servant who trusts in you.
    You are my God; 3 be gracious to me, O Lord,
          for to you do I cry all day long.
4   Gladden the soul of your servant,
          for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
5   For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
          abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.
6   Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;
          listen to my cry of supplication.
7   In the day of my trouble I call on you,
          for you will answer me.
8   There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,
          nor are there any works like yours.
9   All the nations you have made shall come
          and bow down before you, O Lord,
          and shall glorify your name.
10  For you are great and do wondrous things;
          you alone are God.
11  Teach me your way, O LORD,
          that I may walk in your truth;
          give me an undivided heart to revere your name.
12  I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
          and I will glorify your name forever.
13  For great is your steadfast love toward me;
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Meditation as Embodied Poem: “From Poverty of Spirit to Fullness of Heart”

Psalm 86:1, 12–13a
Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart…
For great is your steadfast love toward me.
(Begin in stillness. Let breath gather.)
There is a place in every soul
where language thins,
where our cleverness runs out,
and we remember that we are--
poor and needy.
Not poor in coin,
but in clarity,
in courage,
in the energy to hope again.
The poverty of our own spirit--
that ache that says,
“I cannot lift myself any higher.”
And from that smallness
comes the sound that begins prayer.
A breath.
A tremor.
A whisper barely brave enough to rise:
Incline your ear, O Lord.
When we speak from that place,
we are not begging.
We are belonging.
We are calling on the God
who bends low,
who leans toward the trembling.
(Pause. Let the line hang in air.)
Heaven, bending down--
not to correct,
not to test,
but to listen.
Our need does not shame us;
it reveals us.
It makes us known
to the One who already knows.
Prayer begins there--
in that honest poverty--
and something begins to move.
The silence begins to answer.
The ache begins to breathe.
Slowly,
the same heart that said “Help me”
finds itself saying “Thank you.”
The same hands that clutched at the dark
begin to open.
The mouth that cried “Answer me”
begins to sing,
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart.
What has changed?
Maybe not the world outside--
maybe only the world within.
The shift that prayer makes:
from striving to surrender,
from fear to fullness.
Prayer is not escape.
It is expansion.
It stretches the heart
until it can hold both need and gratitude
in the same sacred breath.
(Allow a deep inhale. Let the words slow.)
To pray is to be lifted--
not out of pain,
but into Presence.
To find that the God who leaned in to hear
now draws us up to praise.
For great is your steadfast love toward me.
Say it again—slowly--
feel it roll through you.
Love toward me.
Love that does not flinch.
Love that hears before we call.
And so the journey of prayer completes its circle:
poverty → presence → praise.
Need → listening → love.
(Let the final silence stretch open; then close with a gentle question.)
Here, in the quiet where God is already leaning close--
for what do you pray today?