I decided several months ago in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for that day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing to worship that week or facing the next.
In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I minister are facing and feeling week by week.In doing so,
I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of December 7 (Second of Advent) – Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13
Dear Lord, what a comfort it is in our disjointed world to be reminded that “steadfast love and faithfulness will meet,” and that “righteousness and peace will kiss each other” (v 10). Is that what you want to stir up in us on this “Stir Up” Sunday, and through this week? That “faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky”?
Give us again fresh faith to believe all that, dear God, to hope for it and work for it, in the power of your Spirit. Let us, with the psalmist, “hear what the Lord will speak … to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.” And help us, Lord, to follow your footprints wherever they lead so that in you we make “make a path” for others to follow in your steps.
“Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.” Amen.
Week of December 14 (Third of Advent) – Psalm 128
So near and yet so far, Lord, eternity is. So near in heart, yet seemingly far in space at times. We feel it by faith as we share the psalmist’s vision of the happiness that goes with fearing the Lord and walking in his ways: You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.”
Yet for many, not least in troubled economic times, faith’s vision is dimmed by circumstances that make faith’s hope seem like a vain dream. Loss of job, family tensions, worries over personal security and safety—not to mention the stress of exponential social change all around—threaten hope and leave many anxious.
Only you can restore those tempted and needy, Lord, by coming alongside. Only you can bless us under Zion and restore the prosperity of Jerusalem. And only you can offer the true peace we need, no matter our circumstance. Teach us this week to look beyond our prosperity to you as the Giver. And help us to look beyond our need to you as our Savior. Amen.
Week of December 21 (Fourth of Advent) – Psalm 89: 1-4, 19-26
Scripture has taught us that “hope that is seen is not hope.” But it also reminds us that we need to pray for eyes to see and ears to hear, less we miss the glory of your coming—whenever and wherever. Help us to look upon and hear deep within this week the covenant promise you have made with your chosen one, which you have also sworn to your servant David: “I will establish your descendants forever.”
Even more, Lord, help us to dwell in our hearts and minds of those thoughts on you that alone can confirm all we hope for and cannot yet see. Your might, your faithfulness, your steadfast love—these alone, no matter our circumstance, are the only true basis of lasting hope.
Those who cry out to you never do so in vain. So I cry out, with the psalmist: “You are my father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.” I believe that, Lord. Only in darker moments, which do come, help my unbelief. Amen.
Week of December 27 (First after Christmas) – Psalm 148
The psalm reminds me, Lord, of a hymn: “How Can I Keep from Singing?” To know you is to be full of praise—whether by lauding your works, declaring your mighty acts, meditating on your awesome deeds, or celebrating your abundant goodness. The recital of all you have done and are doing and will yet do generates praise. Without sacred memory, who can proceed?
So help us this week to kneel before the heart of it all—like wise men and shepherds, led by a star to where your beloved lies in a manger, making room for all to come who still in ignorance make little room for him. Let our praises flow from all we see there, even if its full meaning remains a mystery until the fullness of all time.
Only as we kneel before Christmas, Lord, can we return to life, as we should, singing glory to you for all that we have heard and seen. Thank you for the promise that you will be near to all who call on you and watch over all who have learned, at your invitation, to love you. Amen
Monday, December 1, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - November, 2008
I decided several months ago in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for that day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing to worship that week or facing the next. In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I minister are facing and feeling week by week.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of November 2 (Twenty-seventh after Pentecost) – Psalm 107
How wonderful, Lord, to be reminded again of all the reasons we have to give thanks. The psalmist’s reminder to Israel is his reminder to us to trace the footprints of your goodness, not only in their history but in our own as well. From all the trials and perils of life you have delivered your people through the ages—“desert wastes,” “darkness and gloom,” “sickness though our sinful ways,” “business of the mighty waters,” “oppression, trouble, and sorrow”—yes, from all of these. It was not sometimes by our timetable, impatient as we are. Sometimes we still wonder if you will deliver in the future as you surely have in our past. Forgive us for our doubting, and help us in rehearsing your faithfulness with the psalmist to wait now with expectation before you. And as we wait, wherever we do so this week, teach us that remembering to give thanks is the best way there is to increase our faith. Amen.
Week of November 9 (Twenty-eighth after Pentecost) – Psalm 78:1-7
Paying attention, Lord, is not always easy for our children. How we long for them to know the juices that flow through our common inheritance for them. Why then, longing as we do, is it so hard for them to pay attention? Is it because we have failed in our longing to tell them often enough of your faithfulness, thus warming their hearts by the sharing of the sacred narrative—in your Word, in the history of our forbears, as well as in our own experience of you? Show us, Lord, how better to share with them how you have “established a decree in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel.” Help us to teach them so that they in turn may teach their children. Save both us and them from discarding our spiritual inheritance by being “stubborn and rebellious.” Make us, rather, in all things faithful. Amen.
Week of November 16 (Twenty-ninth after Pentecost) – Psalm 123
Accustomed as servants are to lift their eyes to their master, and maids are to seek the hand of their mistress, why do we hesitate so much to look to you, Lord? Can you help us to realize the foolishness of our ways in not spending more time in your presence? Have mercy upon us, who have “had more than enough of contempt,” and “more than our fill of the scorn of those who are proud and at ease.” Draw us to see you as your are, ever-present to those who seek your face, and when we fail in sensing you are available to us, help us all the more to look upward and inward until your mercy and love flow freely again to us and through us. Make us to be temples of prayer, of praise to you, intercession for others, and petition for ourselves, lest we lose the power only you have to offer us for living. Amen.
Week of November 23 (Christ the King) – Psalm 95
It is Thanksgiving time again in America, Lord. But surely our thanks to you and praise for you cannot be limited to one season or day. The psalmist invites us to “make a joyful noise to you, come into your presence with thanksgiving and praise.” And the reason he gives is that you are “a great God, who holds everything in your mighty hands.” As we worship and bow down, Lord, and kneel before you our Maker, we thank you that we are “the people of your hand and the sheep of your pasture.” Only remind us on this last week of the church year that you are also our Judge, and we dare not “harden our hearts as at Meribah, where our ancestors tested you.” You never lost sight of them when they lost sight of you and went astray for 40 years. O God, in your mercy, keep us thus from going astray, lest we like them miss out on your blessing. Amen.
Week of November 30 (First in Advent) – Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
On this “Stir Up” Sunday and week, as it has come to be known among your people, Lord, “come to save us.” Apart from you we are “the scorn of our neighbors,” who doubt that you exist and are therefore of no value to them. “Let your face shine, that we may be saved.” And “let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,” who you have told us will be sent by you to deliver us from all our fears. Lord, we wait upon you and him. And because we know you will be true to your eternal promise, we will; never turn back from you…. Give us life and we will call on your name.” We wait on you to “restore us, O Lord God of hosts,” and Scripture has taught us that we do not wait in vain. From you have all things come, and to you they will all one day return. Come quickly now, as wait, and deliver us from all our sin. Amen.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of November 2 (Twenty-seventh after Pentecost) – Psalm 107
How wonderful, Lord, to be reminded again of all the reasons we have to give thanks. The psalmist’s reminder to Israel is his reminder to us to trace the footprints of your goodness, not only in their history but in our own as well. From all the trials and perils of life you have delivered your people through the ages—“desert wastes,” “darkness and gloom,” “sickness though our sinful ways,” “business of the mighty waters,” “oppression, trouble, and sorrow”—yes, from all of these. It was not sometimes by our timetable, impatient as we are. Sometimes we still wonder if you will deliver in the future as you surely have in our past. Forgive us for our doubting, and help us in rehearsing your faithfulness with the psalmist to wait now with expectation before you. And as we wait, wherever we do so this week, teach us that remembering to give thanks is the best way there is to increase our faith. Amen.
Week of November 9 (Twenty-eighth after Pentecost) – Psalm 78:1-7
Paying attention, Lord, is not always easy for our children. How we long for them to know the juices that flow through our common inheritance for them. Why then, longing as we do, is it so hard for them to pay attention? Is it because we have failed in our longing to tell them often enough of your faithfulness, thus warming their hearts by the sharing of the sacred narrative—in your Word, in the history of our forbears, as well as in our own experience of you? Show us, Lord, how better to share with them how you have “established a decree in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel.” Help us to teach them so that they in turn may teach their children. Save both us and them from discarding our spiritual inheritance by being “stubborn and rebellious.” Make us, rather, in all things faithful. Amen.
Week of November 16 (Twenty-ninth after Pentecost) – Psalm 123
Accustomed as servants are to lift their eyes to their master, and maids are to seek the hand of their mistress, why do we hesitate so much to look to you, Lord? Can you help us to realize the foolishness of our ways in not spending more time in your presence? Have mercy upon us, who have “had more than enough of contempt,” and “more than our fill of the scorn of those who are proud and at ease.” Draw us to see you as your are, ever-present to those who seek your face, and when we fail in sensing you are available to us, help us all the more to look upward and inward until your mercy and love flow freely again to us and through us. Make us to be temples of prayer, of praise to you, intercession for others, and petition for ourselves, lest we lose the power only you have to offer us for living. Amen.
Week of November 23 (Christ the King) – Psalm 95
It is Thanksgiving time again in America, Lord. But surely our thanks to you and praise for you cannot be limited to one season or day. The psalmist invites us to “make a joyful noise to you, come into your presence with thanksgiving and praise.” And the reason he gives is that you are “a great God, who holds everything in your mighty hands.” As we worship and bow down, Lord, and kneel before you our Maker, we thank you that we are “the people of your hand and the sheep of your pasture.” Only remind us on this last week of the church year that you are also our Judge, and we dare not “harden our hearts as at Meribah, where our ancestors tested you.” You never lost sight of them when they lost sight of you and went astray for 40 years. O God, in your mercy, keep us thus from going astray, lest we like them miss out on your blessing. Amen.
Week of November 30 (First in Advent) – Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
On this “Stir Up” Sunday and week, as it has come to be known among your people, Lord, “come to save us.” Apart from you we are “the scorn of our neighbors,” who doubt that you exist and are therefore of no value to them. “Let your face shine, that we may be saved.” And “let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,” who you have told us will be sent by you to deliver us from all our fears. Lord, we wait upon you and him. And because we know you will be true to your eternal promise, we will; never turn back from you…. Give us life and we will call on your name.” We wait on you to “restore us, O Lord God of hosts,” and Scripture has taught us that we do not wait in vain. From you have all things come, and to you they will all one day return. Come quickly now, as wait, and deliver us from all our sin. Amen.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - October, 2008
I decided several months ago in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for that day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing to worship that week or facing the next. In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I minister are facing and feeling week by week.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of October 5 (Twenty-third after Pentecost) – Psalm 19
Where am I, Lord, with you as autumn begins and we move on earth toward this year’s harvest? Am I and are we, your children, prepared and preparing still for your final harvest in our lives and land? Today’s gospel text in Matthew 21:33-46 makes me wonder—knowing that you see us more truly than we sometimes see ourselves.
You own the earth and our lives on it. We know that and have confessed belonging to you. But could you be warning us that confessing your Lordship requires living it out? Have any of us been guilty of killing your servants, sent to gather the harvest among us? Is it even possible that we could be as guilty as those in Jesus’ parable of killing him, your only begotten Son?
“Clean the slate, God, so we can start [this] day fresh. Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work” (The Message). Help me not to presume on being a faithful steward of all you have given me, but keep me and others here focused on the “surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord … in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own … but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (Philippians 3:8-9, NRSV).
Week of October 12 (Twenty-fourth after Pentecost) – Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
“Rejoice in the Lord always,” the Apostle says (Philippians 4:4, NRSV), repeating it twice as if to remind us. Then he calls us to gentleness, freedom from worry, and “constant prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”
Evidently two sisters in the faith at Philippi had been arguing with each other, causing some division, not unlike believers in today's psalm who “were barely beyond the Red Sea when they defiled the High God…. They only cared about pleasing themselves in that desert, provoked God with their insistent demands” (Psalm 106, The Message),
Why do we sin so much against you and others, God, and forget so quickly all your benefits? Why when you so clearly and graciously invite us to your banquet table of grace do we excuse ourselves in favor of lesser appointments? How dare we make light of your calls to pay attention to you and find our way to your house and table?
Remind us this week—wherever we may go and whatever we may do—that nothing is more important in life than heeding your call. And when we do respond, Lord, help us always to come dressed properly to your banquet, not in clothes of our own but in the robes of your righteousness (Matthew 22:1-14, NRSV).
Week of October 19 (Twenty-fifth after Pentecost) – Psalm 99
To know that we have been chosen by you, Dear God, as Paul reminded the earliest Christians (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, NRSV)) is truly wonderful! And to know as well that we are part of a family of faith that goes back not only to Samuel, but Moses and Aaron, as our psalm reminds us, only deepens the joy.
Why do we then, like so many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, focus the lineage more on us than on you? Ought we not rejoice rather that our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and cease those religious comparisons that only drive us away from you and one another rather than toward you?
Ground us once more, Dear God, in you. Help us to lift you high and “worship in your holy mountain” (Psalm 99:9, The Message). And whenever we are tempted to argue among ourselves, like Jesus’ antagonists did, over who belongs to whom (Matthew 22:15-22, NRSV), save us from ourselves by listening together to him.
Week of October 26 (Twenty-sixth after Pentecost –Reformation Sunday) – Psalm 1
Blessed Paul reminds us today how we as Christians ought to approach others, even when we may be persecuted, as he was, for doing so (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, NRSV). Following his model we are to “share … the gospel of God but also our own selves…”. And Jesus, in the gospel text, says that witness must be based both on our unconditional love for God but our love for our neighbor as well (Matthew 22:34-46, NRSV).
The motive power comes both of being accepted by God and empowered by his Word. “You’re not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust—without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people. Yahweh charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row (Psalm 1:4-6, The Message).
We are those who must “thrill to Yahweh’s Word, …chew on Scripture day and night.” Think of yourself as “a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.” Show us again, Lord, that where we are planted and where we walk and where we refrain from going in our spirits and attitude make all the difference. Reform us as the children of Reformation we are to remember that always.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of October 5 (Twenty-third after Pentecost) – Psalm 19
Where am I, Lord, with you as autumn begins and we move on earth toward this year’s harvest? Am I and are we, your children, prepared and preparing still for your final harvest in our lives and land? Today’s gospel text in Matthew 21:33-46 makes me wonder—knowing that you see us more truly than we sometimes see ourselves.
You own the earth and our lives on it. We know that and have confessed belonging to you. But could you be warning us that confessing your Lordship requires living it out? Have any of us been guilty of killing your servants, sent to gather the harvest among us? Is it even possible that we could be as guilty as those in Jesus’ parable of killing him, your only begotten Son?
“Clean the slate, God, so we can start [this] day fresh. Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over your work” (The Message). Help me not to presume on being a faithful steward of all you have given me, but keep me and others here focused on the “surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord … in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own … but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (Philippians 3:8-9, NRSV).
Week of October 12 (Twenty-fourth after Pentecost) – Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
“Rejoice in the Lord always,” the Apostle says (Philippians 4:4, NRSV), repeating it twice as if to remind us. Then he calls us to gentleness, freedom from worry, and “constant prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”
Evidently two sisters in the faith at Philippi had been arguing with each other, causing some division, not unlike believers in today's psalm who “were barely beyond the Red Sea when they defiled the High God…. They only cared about pleasing themselves in that desert, provoked God with their insistent demands” (Psalm 106, The Message),
Why do we sin so much against you and others, God, and forget so quickly all your benefits? Why when you so clearly and graciously invite us to your banquet table of grace do we excuse ourselves in favor of lesser appointments? How dare we make light of your calls to pay attention to you and find our way to your house and table?
Remind us this week—wherever we may go and whatever we may do—that nothing is more important in life than heeding your call. And when we do respond, Lord, help us always to come dressed properly to your banquet, not in clothes of our own but in the robes of your righteousness (Matthew 22:1-14, NRSV).
Week of October 19 (Twenty-fifth after Pentecost) – Psalm 99
To know that we have been chosen by you, Dear God, as Paul reminded the earliest Christians (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, NRSV)) is truly wonderful! And to know as well that we are part of a family of faith that goes back not only to Samuel, but Moses and Aaron, as our psalm reminds us, only deepens the joy.
Why do we then, like so many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, focus the lineage more on us than on you? Ought we not rejoice rather that our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and cease those religious comparisons that only drive us away from you and one another rather than toward you?
Ground us once more, Dear God, in you. Help us to lift you high and “worship in your holy mountain” (Psalm 99:9, The Message). And whenever we are tempted to argue among ourselves, like Jesus’ antagonists did, over who belongs to whom (Matthew 22:15-22, NRSV), save us from ourselves by listening together to him.
Week of October 26 (Twenty-sixth after Pentecost –Reformation Sunday) – Psalm 1
Blessed Paul reminds us today how we as Christians ought to approach others, even when we may be persecuted, as he was, for doing so (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, NRSV). Following his model we are to “share … the gospel of God but also our own selves…”. And Jesus, in the gospel text, says that witness must be based both on our unconditional love for God but our love for our neighbor as well (Matthew 22:34-46, NRSV).
The motive power comes both of being accepted by God and empowered by his Word. “You’re not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust—without defense in court, unfit company for innocent people. Yahweh charts the road you take. The road they take is Skid Row (Psalm 1:4-6, The Message).
We are those who must “thrill to Yahweh’s Word, …chew on Scripture day and night.” Think of yourself as “a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.” Show us again, Lord, that where we are planted and where we walk and where we refrain from going in our spirits and attitude make all the difference. Reform us as the children of Reformation we are to remember that always.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - September, 2008
I decided recently in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for the day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing that week or facing the next.
In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of September 7 (Seventeenth after Pentecost) Psalm 149
The psalmist’s counsel to “Sing to the LORD a new song” is interestingly tied to his call to “Let Israel be glad in its Maker,” and “the children of Zion rejoice in their King.” One is reminded, Lord, of Israel’s cry in exile, “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (137:4). Well, the same way, evidently, we sing it anywhere, since the whole world is yours, and praise can come out of exile as well as good fortune.
This psalm even suggests that high praise to you, dear God, “be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples.” Why? “To bind their kings with fetters, and their nobles with chains of iron, to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones.”
Lest one get lost in the logic of it all, the point is clear. To sing to the Lord is new song can never be an exercise simply in duty. If I am to sing to you, O Lord, not least a new song, I must lose myself in the magnificence of who you are and the joy of becoming ever more obedient to your will. May it be so!
Week of September 14 (Eighteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 103:1-13
Why is it, Lord that this psalm is such a comfort not only to me but for those to whom I minister in times of stress and illness? Why, indeed, if not that in spite of the worst that life can throw at us, your mercy and love abound. Deep down within us, no matter our momentary doubts, we know that you offer to forgive all our iniquities, heal all our diseases, redeem our lives from the Pit, and beyond all the rescuing even crown us with steadfast love and mercy.
Who is like unto you, O Lord? There is no other god before you! All the others deal with us according to our sins and repay us according to our iniquities. But you remove all these from us; “as far as the east is from the west, so far do you remove our transgressions from us.”
Help us, Lord, not to presume on all this, but to accept it in awe and thanksgiving, that we may help others to see their lives and live them out in that divine/human perspective which only you can supply.
Week of September 21 (Nineteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 145: 1-8
“I will extol you, my God and King,” the psalmist begins. And he is obviously saying that, as one commentator puts it, “as part of the cult community [that] responds with its unbroken hymnic tradition to that perpetual presence of the divine salvation” into which the poet wants to incorporate his song.
We, with the psalmist, must learn ever to sing in community, Lord—the community of your people, gathered not only in our place and time but in all ages before us and yet to come. We are not strong enough to sing your praise by ourselves. The fount of our song is in you and in all the people who belong to you—past, present, and future.
Unless we fill our spirits with “your mighty acts … the glorious splendor of your majesty … your wondrous works … your awesome deeds … the fame of your abundant goodness … [and] your righteousness,” what shall fuel our singing?
Inhabit my spirit, Lord, with your Spirit, and join my voice to the voices of your saints in every age that together we may laud your name and proclaim your grace to the nations.
Week of September 28 (Twentieth after Pentecost) Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Today, O Lord, and all throughout this week, my heart is for my children and their children, even to a fourth generation. In fact, it is for all children, everywhere in this world, so many of whom have no one to tell them the stories that make up your Story, the Story of Redemption.
You know in your providence I often feel like a propter at an opera, waiting to share what someone may have forgotten along the way of all God has done and yet offers to do for them. Thank you that in the short space of this longer psalm that Story is rehearsed once more for all who would take the time to rehearse it.
How wonderful that so many in our time are recovering their sense of ancient/modern worship, in which the praise of God is tied, as it was in biblical times, to the whole history of redemption in this world.
Inspire us all, Lord, to dig more deeply into the storehouses of redemptive history that alone can both deepen our sense of wonder and generate our praise. Forgive us for insulating ourselves in our own little worlds and missing the glory of your presence in your whole universe of time and space.
And above all, Lord, help us devotedly to share it with the children, lest they be robbed of their true inheritance among the saints in light. Amen.
In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of September 7 (Seventeenth after Pentecost) Psalm 149
The psalmist’s counsel to “Sing to the LORD a new song” is interestingly tied to his call to “Let Israel be glad in its Maker,” and “the children of Zion rejoice in their King.” One is reminded, Lord, of Israel’s cry in exile, “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (137:4). Well, the same way, evidently, we sing it anywhere, since the whole world is yours, and praise can come out of exile as well as good fortune.
This psalm even suggests that high praise to you, dear God, “be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples.” Why? “To bind their kings with fetters, and their nobles with chains of iron, to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones.”
Lest one get lost in the logic of it all, the point is clear. To sing to the Lord is new song can never be an exercise simply in duty. If I am to sing to you, O Lord, not least a new song, I must lose myself in the magnificence of who you are and the joy of becoming ever more obedient to your will. May it be so!
Week of September 14 (Eighteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 103:1-13
Why is it, Lord that this psalm is such a comfort not only to me but for those to whom I minister in times of stress and illness? Why, indeed, if not that in spite of the worst that life can throw at us, your mercy and love abound. Deep down within us, no matter our momentary doubts, we know that you offer to forgive all our iniquities, heal all our diseases, redeem our lives from the Pit, and beyond all the rescuing even crown us with steadfast love and mercy.
Who is like unto you, O Lord? There is no other god before you! All the others deal with us according to our sins and repay us according to our iniquities. But you remove all these from us; “as far as the east is from the west, so far do you remove our transgressions from us.”
Help us, Lord, not to presume on all this, but to accept it in awe and thanksgiving, that we may help others to see their lives and live them out in that divine/human perspective which only you can supply.
Week of September 21 (Nineteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 145: 1-8
“I will extol you, my God and King,” the psalmist begins. And he is obviously saying that, as one commentator puts it, “as part of the cult community [that] responds with its unbroken hymnic tradition to that perpetual presence of the divine salvation” into which the poet wants to incorporate his song.
We, with the psalmist, must learn ever to sing in community, Lord—the community of your people, gathered not only in our place and time but in all ages before us and yet to come. We are not strong enough to sing your praise by ourselves. The fount of our song is in you and in all the people who belong to you—past, present, and future.
Unless we fill our spirits with “your mighty acts … the glorious splendor of your majesty … your wondrous works … your awesome deeds … the fame of your abundant goodness … [and] your righteousness,” what shall fuel our singing?
Inhabit my spirit, Lord, with your Spirit, and join my voice to the voices of your saints in every age that together we may laud your name and proclaim your grace to the nations.
Week of September 28 (Twentieth after Pentecost) Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Today, O Lord, and all throughout this week, my heart is for my children and their children, even to a fourth generation. In fact, it is for all children, everywhere in this world, so many of whom have no one to tell them the stories that make up your Story, the Story of Redemption.
You know in your providence I often feel like a propter at an opera, waiting to share what someone may have forgotten along the way of all God has done and yet offers to do for them. Thank you that in the short space of this longer psalm that Story is rehearsed once more for all who would take the time to rehearse it.
How wonderful that so many in our time are recovering their sense of ancient/modern worship, in which the praise of God is tied, as it was in biblical times, to the whole history of redemption in this world.
Inspire us all, Lord, to dig more deeply into the storehouses of redemptive history that alone can both deepen our sense of wonder and generate our praise. Forgive us for insulating ourselves in our own little worlds and missing the glory of your presence in your whole universe of time and space.
And above all, Lord, help us devotedly to share it with the children, lest they be robbed of their true inheritance among the saints in light. Amen.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - August, 2008
I decided recently in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for the day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing that week or facing the next.In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of August (Twelfth after Pentecost) Psalm 17:1-7, 15
Innocence and guilt seem to form the framework of this psalm of David, Lord. The fact that he, too, had enemies—people making unwarranted accusations against him—draws us into his prayer, for we too struggle at times against what seem like principalities and powers determined to do us in.
Surely David’s protestations of innocence at this point in his life are not naïve, as if he himself was righteous and sinless. Yet on this occasion he seems almost to think himself so. “If you test me, you will find no wickedness in me,” he says. Though we know better of him and ourselves, we have sometimes mirrored his protestations of innocence in our own experience.
What seems central here, in any case, is his concern to lay it all before you, which should be our concern as well. Who is right and who is wrong is better seen when we “behold your face in righteousness.” In all the peaks and valleys of our lives, only in beholding your likeness shall we “be satisfied.”
Week of August 10 (Thirteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 85:8-13
To read this part of Psalm 85 is to be reminded of Psalm 121: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” If we look forward in hope, dear God, it is surely because of who you are and all your greatness promises.
But I could not read vv.8-13 without glancing also at vv.1-7, which catalogue things you have done in the past among your people. “You restored … forgave … pardoned … withdrew your wrath … turned from your hot anger." Teach us again, dear God, that looking to the future with you, to be authentic, requires remembering your strong footprints throughout history. For you and you alone are not only the Omega—the end of all things—but the Alpha—their beginning as well.
How we thank you, Lord, that everything that will one day be has already been revealed by you to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Therefore we confess with the psalmist, that “The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.”
Week of August 17 (Fourteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 133
Living as we do, Lord, in a world of fractured primary relationships, this celebration of how “good and pleasant” life can be in the family of faith is inspiring. Remind us again, meditating on this psalm, that all of life is sacred, from the religious symbolism that the priesthood of Aaron has established to the mountains of Hermon and Zion where nature has memorialized your presence.
Lift up before us this week the places in our own lives where you have met us along the way. Help us to confess freely of each of them, “There the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.”
And cause us then to listen to the witness of others to your glory in their lives, that drawn by your Spirit in them and in us we may manifest the “good and pleasant” unity you intend among your own.
Week of August 24 (Fifteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 124
Forgive us, Lord, on reading this psalm, that we all too often think more of what you ought to do for us now than what you have done for us in the past. Thus do we make you our servant, reversing the divine/human divide, and pretending that we are in control.
Why are we so forgetful? How many times do we have to be reminded of your rescuing grace and demonstrated love? No wonder we as God’s people need constantly to be reminded (“Let Israel now say”) that “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,” where would we be?
“Enemies … floods … and raging waters,” both around us and within, have often threatened our well being. We all know that in our heart of hearts. Ought we not then cry out more often with the psalmist, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us [up] as prey” to such? Have we not escaped more often than we sometimes want to acknowledge “from the snare of the fowlers”?
Were it not so, Lord, then and even now, where would we be?
Week of August 31 (Sixteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 105: 1-6, 23-26
Today, dear Lord, and this week, I feel drawn to the psalmist’s reminder in giving thanks to the LORD and calling on his name, we must also “make known his deeds among the peoples,” and “tell of all his wondrous works.”
Why are we so hesitant to share with the world (note “the peoples”) what the you have done for us, dear Lord? Is it because the focus of our lives, despite your manifold grace, is all too turned in on ourselves? Can we be expected to witness if we are not growing—even reveling-- in our personal relationship to you and your mighty acts in the history of your people?
The verse of a hymn comes to mind:. “Of the time may we avail us, when to seek us you are near; soon the day of grace may fail us, and no message more we hear. Turn our minds to meditation on our need of your salvation; urge on all your invitation, to our prayer incline your ear” (The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No. 500).
Week of August (Twelfth after Pentecost) Psalm 17:1-7, 15
Innocence and guilt seem to form the framework of this psalm of David, Lord. The fact that he, too, had enemies—people making unwarranted accusations against him—draws us into his prayer, for we too struggle at times against what seem like principalities and powers determined to do us in.
Surely David’s protestations of innocence at this point in his life are not naïve, as if he himself was righteous and sinless. Yet on this occasion he seems almost to think himself so. “If you test me, you will find no wickedness in me,” he says. Though we know better of him and ourselves, we have sometimes mirrored his protestations of innocence in our own experience.
What seems central here, in any case, is his concern to lay it all before you, which should be our concern as well. Who is right and who is wrong is better seen when we “behold your face in righteousness.” In all the peaks and valleys of our lives, only in beholding your likeness shall we “be satisfied.”
Week of August 10 (Thirteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 85:8-13
To read this part of Psalm 85 is to be reminded of Psalm 121: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” If we look forward in hope, dear God, it is surely because of who you are and all your greatness promises.
But I could not read vv.8-13 without glancing also at vv.1-7, which catalogue things you have done in the past among your people. “You restored … forgave … pardoned … withdrew your wrath … turned from your hot anger." Teach us again, dear God, that looking to the future with you, to be authentic, requires remembering your strong footprints throughout history. For you and you alone are not only the Omega—the end of all things—but the Alpha—their beginning as well.
How we thank you, Lord, that everything that will one day be has already been revealed by you to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Therefore we confess with the psalmist, that “The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.”
Week of August 17 (Fourteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 133
Living as we do, Lord, in a world of fractured primary relationships, this celebration of how “good and pleasant” life can be in the family of faith is inspiring. Remind us again, meditating on this psalm, that all of life is sacred, from the religious symbolism that the priesthood of Aaron has established to the mountains of Hermon and Zion where nature has memorialized your presence.
Lift up before us this week the places in our own lives where you have met us along the way. Help us to confess freely of each of them, “There the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.”
And cause us then to listen to the witness of others to your glory in their lives, that drawn by your Spirit in them and in us we may manifest the “good and pleasant” unity you intend among your own.
Week of August 24 (Fifteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 124
Forgive us, Lord, on reading this psalm, that we all too often think more of what you ought to do for us now than what you have done for us in the past. Thus do we make you our servant, reversing the divine/human divide, and pretending that we are in control.
Why are we so forgetful? How many times do we have to be reminded of your rescuing grace and demonstrated love? No wonder we as God’s people need constantly to be reminded (“Let Israel now say”) that “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,” where would we be?
“Enemies … floods … and raging waters,” both around us and within, have often threatened our well being. We all know that in our heart of hearts. Ought we not then cry out more often with the psalmist, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us [up] as prey” to such? Have we not escaped more often than we sometimes want to acknowledge “from the snare of the fowlers”?
Were it not so, Lord, then and even now, where would we be?
Week of August 31 (Sixteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 105: 1-6, 23-26
Today, dear Lord, and this week, I feel drawn to the psalmist’s reminder in giving thanks to the LORD and calling on his name, we must also “make known his deeds among the peoples,” and “tell of all his wondrous works.”
Why are we so hesitant to share with the world (note “the peoples”) what the you have done for us, dear Lord? Is it because the focus of our lives, despite your manifold grace, is all too turned in on ourselves? Can we be expected to witness if we are not growing—even reveling-- in our personal relationship to you and your mighty acts in the history of your people?
The verse of a hymn comes to mind:. “Of the time may we avail us, when to seek us you are near; soon the day of grace may fail us, and no message more we hear. Turn our minds to meditation on our need of your salvation; urge on all your invitation, to our prayer incline your ear” (The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No. 500).
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - July, 2008
I decided recently in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for the day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing that week or facing the next.
In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of July 6 (Eighth after Pentecost) Psalm 45:10-17
Thank you, Lord, for a psalm that addresses human love—the bond between male and female that begets life and offers pleasure. Thank you, too, for putting it in perspective, for tying it to your ultimate purposes in and for life. We confess that social and cultural pressures tend in our time to make sex an end in itself, often thoughtlessly and selfishly entered into, as if all that matters is the sensation of it and momentary satisfaction.
Here with both warnings and encouragements you join pleasure to obedience and responsibility, promising that from right attitudes will flow great blessings. You lift the physical above its physicality and thus render it what it was meant to be—a profoundly spiritual thing.
Forgive us, Lord, for so often taking this gift into our own hands and thus diminishing its true purpose. Make us sensitive to the stewardship of our lives in this respect, and grant us the deeper joy of knowing in our hearts that year after year we are loving those you have given us to love in keeping with your will. Amen.
Week of July 13 (Ninth after Pentecost) Psalm 119:105-112
Dear Father, we know over years now in our studies that this psalm is unique in its focus, verse by verse, on your word. What a wonderful reminder it is of our need to keep focusing on that word day by day, even moment by moment. Only help us to grasp that the blessing lies not in our disciplined remembering but in the life supplied to us by our remembering you and your word.
With the psalmist we hold our lives in our hands continually—perhaps too much. Help us to release them more to you and your word. As for me, Lord, make “your decrees … my heritage forever,” and “the joy of my heart.” Make them also “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Week of July 20 (Tenth after Pentecost) Psalm 139:1-12, 23,24
How good it is, Lord, to be reminded that you search us and know us. “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you [even] discern my thoughts from far away…. Even before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely.”
It would be much harder to be thus hemmed in behind and before if you had not revealed yourself to us as you are—a God of grace. Left to ourselves we would be lost indeed and filled with dismay over all the darkness surrounding. Yet “even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
Even in our mother’s womb you knew us, when we were being made in secret. Our frame has never been hidden from you.”How weighty are such thoughts, O God.” We cannot plumb their depths, no matter how hard we try, but we do know that nevertheless you are with us and we are with you.
Search deeply into all your people this week. See if there be any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.
Week of July 27 (Eleventh after Pentecost) Psalm 105: 1-11, 45b
How wonderful, O Lord, are all the deep storehouses of memory you have supplied your people in biblical narrative. Forgive us for not dipping more deeply into them to refresh our souls and bolster our spirits. One is reminded of the of the hymnist's query: “What more can he say than to you he hath said..?” (The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No 437).
“Remember the wonderful works he has done,” the psalmist says, “his miracles, and the judgments he uttered.” Remember too that “he is mindful of his covenant, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations.” He will not step away from all he has done. Nor will he be untrue to his promises.
Therein lies reason for praise. We are held in the hands of a faithful and loving God. And we live under his eternal promise to his own that nothing will ever be able to separate us from his love and concern. “Praise the Lord!”
In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.
In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of July 6 (Eighth after Pentecost) Psalm 45:10-17
Thank you, Lord, for a psalm that addresses human love—the bond between male and female that begets life and offers pleasure. Thank you, too, for putting it in perspective, for tying it to your ultimate purposes in and for life. We confess that social and cultural pressures tend in our time to make sex an end in itself, often thoughtlessly and selfishly entered into, as if all that matters is the sensation of it and momentary satisfaction.
Here with both warnings and encouragements you join pleasure to obedience and responsibility, promising that from right attitudes will flow great blessings. You lift the physical above its physicality and thus render it what it was meant to be—a profoundly spiritual thing.
Forgive us, Lord, for so often taking this gift into our own hands and thus diminishing its true purpose. Make us sensitive to the stewardship of our lives in this respect, and grant us the deeper joy of knowing in our hearts that year after year we are loving those you have given us to love in keeping with your will. Amen.
Week of July 13 (Ninth after Pentecost) Psalm 119:105-112
Dear Father, we know over years now in our studies that this psalm is unique in its focus, verse by verse, on your word. What a wonderful reminder it is of our need to keep focusing on that word day by day, even moment by moment. Only help us to grasp that the blessing lies not in our disciplined remembering but in the life supplied to us by our remembering you and your word.
With the psalmist we hold our lives in our hands continually—perhaps too much. Help us to release them more to you and your word. As for me, Lord, make “your decrees … my heritage forever,” and “the joy of my heart.” Make them also “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Week of July 20 (Tenth after Pentecost) Psalm 139:1-12, 23,24
How good it is, Lord, to be reminded that you search us and know us. “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you [even] discern my thoughts from far away…. Even before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely.”
It would be much harder to be thus hemmed in behind and before if you had not revealed yourself to us as you are—a God of grace. Left to ourselves we would be lost indeed and filled with dismay over all the darkness surrounding. Yet “even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
Even in our mother’s womb you knew us, when we were being made in secret. Our frame has never been hidden from you.”How weighty are such thoughts, O God.” We cannot plumb their depths, no matter how hard we try, but we do know that nevertheless you are with us and we are with you.
Search deeply into all your people this week. See if there be any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.
Week of July 27 (Eleventh after Pentecost) Psalm 105: 1-11, 45b
How wonderful, O Lord, are all the deep storehouses of memory you have supplied your people in biblical narrative. Forgive us for not dipping more deeply into them to refresh our souls and bolster our spirits. One is reminded of the of the hymnist's query: “What more can he say than to you he hath said..?” (The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No 437).
“Remember the wonderful works he has done,” the psalmist says, “his miracles, and the judgments he uttered.” Remember too that “he is mindful of his covenant, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations.” He will not step away from all he has done. Nor will he be untrue to his promises.
Therein lies reason for praise. We are held in the hands of a faithful and loving God. And we live under his eternal promise to his own that nothing will ever be able to separate us from his love and concern. “Praise the Lord!”
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - June, 2008
I decided recently in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for the day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing that week or facing the next.In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.
Week of June 1 (Third after Pentecost), Psalm 46
O Lord of earth and sky and sea, you who also inhabit the whole of space and time, we stand amazed that with so much to govern beyond us you still keep track of your people in every age. Stream by stream through centuries of time you have merged your people into that river of yours which makes glad the city of God.
How is it that you can be in our midst, even while managing the whole universe? Why is it that you deign to help us day by day, as each morning dawns upon us? How can it be that while nations are in an uproar and kingdoms all around us totter you remain a very present help in trouble, our refuge and strength?
Help us to enter into our inheritance this week as your people—not by reason of our strength but by grace through faith. Renew in our hearts and minds all the great acts in sacred history by which you have made yourself known, and help us to step into the footprints of your Spirit alive and active today.
Still the lesser voices around us that vie for our attention, until we know that you and you alone are God. Remind us also not only that you are with us as your people but that no matter what else appears to be so, you will be exalted among the nations, indeed, exalted in the earth.
Week of June 8 (Fourth after Pentecost) Psalm 50:7-15
Week of June 1 (Third after Pentecost), Psalm 46
O Lord of earth and sky and sea, you who also inhabit the whole of space and time, we stand amazed that with so much to govern beyond us you still keep track of your people in every age. Stream by stream through centuries of time you have merged your people into that river of yours which makes glad the city of God.
How is it that you can be in our midst, even while managing the whole universe? Why is it that you deign to help us day by day, as each morning dawns upon us? How can it be that while nations are in an uproar and kingdoms all around us totter you remain a very present help in trouble, our refuge and strength?
Help us to enter into our inheritance this week as your people—not by reason of our strength but by grace through faith. Renew in our hearts and minds all the great acts in sacred history by which you have made yourself known, and help us to step into the footprints of your Spirit alive and active today.
Still the lesser voices around us that vie for our attention, until we know that you and you alone are God. Remind us also not only that you are with us as your people but that no matter what else appears to be so, you will be exalted among the nations, indeed, exalted in the earth.
Week of June 8 (Fourth after Pentecost) Psalm 50:7-15
Dear God, reading your word sometimes catches me completely off guard. And earlier translation of verse 9 says: I will accept no bull from your house. I know, of course, what that points to in the psalm. Clear reference is made to the whole Old Testament sacrificial system that often became a substitute among your people for a truer sacrifice of inner attitudes contrary to your will.
Yet our own religious sacrifices are often no less contrived. We too make offerings that mask unrighteousness in our hearts. How much “bull” have we not offered to you over years, and how much more do we try offering you even yet?
Wesley Nelson—bless his memory!-- once preached a sermon on this, noting how one soul when asked to repent of his sin, literally offered up on your altar “a bad temper, two theater tickets, and a pack of cigarettes.” Wesley asked rightly wondered what God was going to do with those! God wants us on his altar, not just our vices—or even our virtues.
What you spoke through the psalmist sounds a warning we all need to hear: You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your kin; you slander your own mother’s child. These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.
Lord, have mercy. Help us not to forget who it is to whom we now come this week in prayer and worship. And help us hear in coming the invitation you still extend: Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God.
Week of June 15 (Fifth after Pentecost) Psalm 100
When I think of this psalm, Lord, I recall a man in my wife’s home church in Kansas City who literally, when singing, made no more than “a joyful noise.” I admired that man and remember later telling him so. Not only that, I told his story at a retreat once in Canada, and someone after hearing came up and said, “For the first time in my life I was encouraged tonight after hearing that story to sing the closing song, even though I‘m just a monotone! And you know what? I’m going to keep singing from this night on.”
Why not? The hearts of both men were obviously in their singing. They loved you, God, and worshiped with gladness for the privilege of coming into your presence. They knew that you had made them and that they were yours—your people, and the sheep of your pasture. They also knew that you are good, that your steadfast love endures forever and [your] faithfulness to all generations.
Lord, open our eyes that we may see. Open our ears to hear. And open our throats from within to sing, voice or no voice. Listen for our praise beyond even the finest melodies we can frame to the motion of our hearts! Amen.
Week of June 22 Sixth after Pentecost) Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
As servants of yours, Dear Lord, and of all to whom you have sent us over the years, we confess with the psalmist our need of encouragement. I am poor sand needy. It has not been uncommon for us to pray with him, Gladden the heart of your servant, for we have often needed a new burst of joy in our lives
We know that you…are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you. Yet in times of trouble, and even in all-too-frequent days of less than satisfying duty, our souls thirst for your blessing. We need to see you then, and feel the touch of your hand on our shoulder. For we know with the psalmist, that there is none like you among the gods…nor are there any works like yours.
We also know in our hearts that you are the Lord even of those who do not seem to think so. All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, for…you alone are God. Renew that faith in us this week, and resurrect in our spirits the hope in you that fills even life’s dull routines with meaning.
Show me a sign of your favor, the psalmist prayed. Show us one as well. Send us into this week both confident in your call and assured of your blessing. And what we pray for ourselves we pray also for brothers and sisters all over the world in need of your blessing.
Week of June 29 (Seventh after Pentecost) Psalm 13
Reading this Psalm, O God, in light of the Old Testament text on Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, makes it somehow come alive for me. What remarkable faith he showed in his willingness even to do that! The Apostle Paul warns his readers in Romans 6, the Epistle text, that we have a choice--to yield our members to sin as instruments of wickedness or present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present [our] members to God as instruments of righteousness.
King David, like all of us, failed you, Lord, in his waywardness and wickedness. Yet when he called on you for forgiveness and deliverance, you did not fail him, any more than you failed Abraham, or have failed us. I belong in the household of faith with them—simultaneously, as Luther says, justus et peccator, sinner and saint. How could that ever have been apart from your love and grace? No wonder I have come to trust in you. How else could I have survived, much less served others?
Martin Luther’s Sacristy Prayer comes to mind, Lord--the prayer he prayed every week before going in to preach and teach. An illustrated copy it has not only hung on my wall for years but framed my ministry as well. It’s last paragraph expresses my longing: “Use me as thy instrument in thy service. Only do not thou forsake me, for if I am left to myself I will certainly bring it all to destruction. Amen.”
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - May, 2008
Week of May 4 (Seventh of Easter) Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
To come from life as it is for us to you as you are, O God, is seldom easy. Is that because what we are in ourselves is so unresolved? Sometimes, like the psalmist, we address you in the third person: Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, let the wicked perish before God. But let the righteous be joyful; let them exult before God; let them be jubilant before God.
Why are we so often disjointed in our prayers if not that we come to you disjointed in our souls? C. S. Lewis once called you “our still point in a turning world.” We know that in our heart of hearts, for we can recall in our own lives, as the psalmist did, that when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain…your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
Why do we keep forgetting your goodness in times past, your clear footprints and shepherd’s care over the years? Why are we so often frazzled in our spirits, out of touch with the things that remain? Why so soon in Eastertide have we already forgotten Easter?
Is that why life in your church is so important, the opening and re-opening of your word, the rehearsing again of biblical story to remind us of your place in our own?
Ought we to think of you more often in the third person, not as One simply at our beck and call, but as the “Awesome One” you are, in whom alone all the disjoints of life can be healed, and all its hurts and self-centeredness resolved? Rise up, O God, to save and bring us home. Amen.
Week of May 11 (Pentecost) Psalm 104:24-35
Lord, it is Pentecost again, that season when the Holy Spirit descended on your people in New Testament times, even as Jesus had promised before ascending into heaven. Fresh new winds blew then on scattered believers come together “with one accord in one place,” and people of different tongues were joined to each other as they heard of your power in their own language and felt it in their own being.
Coming from you and the Son, surely the descent of the Holy Spirit was not a wholly new thing, was it? Wasn’t it rather, like the resurrection of Jesus, the coming together of many things portended in the long sacred history of your presence among your people? The psalmist knew it from afar, even if only in promise: O Lord, how manifold are your works! …These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them they gather it up; when you open your hand they are filled with good things…. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
In every age since Father Abraham, your people, led by your hand, have done more than they knew, and experienced more than they could ever have imagined. Let it be so among us again, Lord. Send your Spirit to unite us. Gather your people from their scattered ways and tongues, that in fresh new demonstrations of your power we may draw the whole world to your side. Amen.
Week of May 18 (Trinity, First after Pentecost) Psalm 8
The wonder of nature, O God, especially at this time of year, is something to behold. How majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark….
Thus do we experience you in things both great and small. Heavens above and creatures all around witness to the Sovereign One you are beyond us. We can neither find our way to you nor escape from you by devices of our own. Your world, both within and around, invites us rather into mysteries and glories far beyond our ken.
When I see the heavens on a starry night, and contemplate their vastness, I wonder with the psalmist, what are human beings that you are mindful of them? And when I think on the intricacies of our inner world—how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, even in our mother’s womb—I am equally lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Why have you crowned [human beings] with glory and honor? Why have you given them dominion over the works of your hands? Why have you put all things under their feet…? The grace of that, and trust exhibited, not to mention the love displayed, is amazing!
Make me a blessing, Lord, a vessel fit for your use, this week and always. Drive home to all your people everywhere both the majesty of your Being and the urgency of your call. Amen.
Week of May 25 (Second after Pentecost) Psalm 131
“A Song of Ascent,” we read. “Of David.” A king, he, of the royal line from which Jesus descended, fully human and fully divine. How could it be, Father, that Jesus, so different from that line as we have come to know it, could still be identified with it?
In three brief verses, Lord, my soul is refreshed. Not motivated, as so much of life seeks to motivate me—“be this,” “do this,” “follow here,” “go there,” –but simply refreshed, put at rest, at peace, content.
I address you with the psalmist: O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, my soul is like a weaned child that is with me.
How wonderful, O Triune God, to find such rest in this restless world. St Augustine said it well, in the crucible of his own experience: ”My soul is restless until it finds its rest in you.”
No wonder the psalmist called on all of Israel to hope in the Lord, from this time on and forevermore. Can I do less in my own walk than issue the same call for the sake of your people everywhere? Still my soul this week before you, and use the stillness, invaded by your Spirit, to awaken in others a whole new hunger for the things that remain. Amen.
To come from life as it is for us to you as you are, O God, is seldom easy. Is that because what we are in ourselves is so unresolved? Sometimes, like the psalmist, we address you in the third person: Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, let the wicked perish before God. But let the righteous be joyful; let them exult before God; let them be jubilant before God.
Why are we so often disjointed in our prayers if not that we come to you disjointed in our souls? C. S. Lewis once called you “our still point in a turning world.” We know that in our heart of hearts, for we can recall in our own lives, as the psalmist did, that when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain…your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
Why do we keep forgetting your goodness in times past, your clear footprints and shepherd’s care over the years? Why are we so often frazzled in our spirits, out of touch with the things that remain? Why so soon in Eastertide have we already forgotten Easter?
Is that why life in your church is so important, the opening and re-opening of your word, the rehearsing again of biblical story to remind us of your place in our own?
Ought we to think of you more often in the third person, not as One simply at our beck and call, but as the “Awesome One” you are, in whom alone all the disjoints of life can be healed, and all its hurts and self-centeredness resolved? Rise up, O God, to save and bring us home. Amen.
Week of May 11 (Pentecost) Psalm 104:24-35
Lord, it is Pentecost again, that season when the Holy Spirit descended on your people in New Testament times, even as Jesus had promised before ascending into heaven. Fresh new winds blew then on scattered believers come together “with one accord in one place,” and people of different tongues were joined to each other as they heard of your power in their own language and felt it in their own being.
Coming from you and the Son, surely the descent of the Holy Spirit was not a wholly new thing, was it? Wasn’t it rather, like the resurrection of Jesus, the coming together of many things portended in the long sacred history of your presence among your people? The psalmist knew it from afar, even if only in promise: O Lord, how manifold are your works! …These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them they gather it up; when you open your hand they are filled with good things…. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
In every age since Father Abraham, your people, led by your hand, have done more than they knew, and experienced more than they could ever have imagined. Let it be so among us again, Lord. Send your Spirit to unite us. Gather your people from their scattered ways and tongues, that in fresh new demonstrations of your power we may draw the whole world to your side. Amen.
Week of May 18 (Trinity, First after Pentecost) Psalm 8
The wonder of nature, O God, especially at this time of year, is something to behold. How majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark….
Thus do we experience you in things both great and small. Heavens above and creatures all around witness to the Sovereign One you are beyond us. We can neither find our way to you nor escape from you by devices of our own. Your world, both within and around, invites us rather into mysteries and glories far beyond our ken.
When I see the heavens on a starry night, and contemplate their vastness, I wonder with the psalmist, what are human beings that you are mindful of them? And when I think on the intricacies of our inner world—how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, even in our mother’s womb—I am equally lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Why have you crowned [human beings] with glory and honor? Why have you given them dominion over the works of your hands? Why have you put all things under their feet…? The grace of that, and trust exhibited, not to mention the love displayed, is amazing!
Make me a blessing, Lord, a vessel fit for your use, this week and always. Drive home to all your people everywhere both the majesty of your Being and the urgency of your call. Amen.
Week of May 25 (Second after Pentecost) Psalm 131
“A Song of Ascent,” we read. “Of David.” A king, he, of the royal line from which Jesus descended, fully human and fully divine. How could it be, Father, that Jesus, so different from that line as we have come to know it, could still be identified with it?
In three brief verses, Lord, my soul is refreshed. Not motivated, as so much of life seeks to motivate me—“be this,” “do this,” “follow here,” “go there,” –but simply refreshed, put at rest, at peace, content.
I address you with the psalmist: O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, my soul is like a weaned child that is with me.
How wonderful, O Triune God, to find such rest in this restless world. St Augustine said it well, in the crucible of his own experience: ”My soul is restless until it finds its rest in you.”
No wonder the psalmist called on all of Israel to hope in the Lord, from this time on and forevermore. Can I do less in my own walk than issue the same call for the sake of your people everywhere? Still my soul this week before you, and use the stillness, invaded by your Spirit, to awaken in others a whole new hunger for the things that remain. Amen.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Praying the Psalms - April, 2008
Week of April 6 (Third of Easter) Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
Gracious God, from all the roads I have traveled and travel still, it is always well to turn aside and seek your presence. The quietness here both stills my anxieties and renews my faith, remembering with the psalmist how in times past you have heard my voice and my supplications.
It has not been my lot, as it is for so many in this world, to face the extremities of suffering and death. But I have known when the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me, as conscience over sins in thought, word, and deed left me sad and sorrowful, and I suffered distress and anguish. I have called on you often, and do so again: O Lord, I pray, save my life.
Why is it that I feel no need, in your presence, to catalogue all that? Is it because, here and now, I see you as you are, and sense that simply coming back to seek your face is what you desire most? The wholeness I feel here is amazing. Who is there, anywhere, like you?
You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, and I walk before you in the land of the living.
O Lord, what can I return to [you] for all [your] bounty to me? Help me to lift up the cup of salvation. Help me to pay to you my vows in the presence of all your people. And help me, by the power of your Spirit, to offer others the rest and the deliverance there always is in your presence.
Week of April 13 (Fourth of Easter) Psalm 23
Lord, gather my scattered body and spirit this week, as I wait before you. Like a dumb sheep, ever in need of a shepherd, I too have gone astray. And like me, everyone around tends to turn to his or her own way. We nibble ourselves lost on promising tufts of green grass that we think will satisfy, only to discover on looking up that we are lost. Without you to guide and care for us, we are often confused, not knowing where we are, or why.
Oh to be more like the first Christian flock, who devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Teach me, Good Shepherd, not to abandon that flock, but to lie down in green pastures with it, beside still waters and right paths, wherever you lead.
You have not promised that our way will be easy. There is clear and present danger everywhere. Your Apostle Peter has even written that we will suffer, not only when we deserve to but when we don’t as well. Remind me, lest I forget, that your Son suffered too, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might become the shepherd and guardian of our souls.
Thanks that you prepare a table before me still, and anoint my head with oil until my cup overflows. Surely, because of you, and your shepherd’s heart, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. Amen.
Week of April 20 (Fifth of Easter) Psalm 31:1-5, 15,16
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, as well as the whole lineage of David from which Jesus came, you are indeed my rock and my fortress. To be thus sheltered under your Sovereign wings, just as all my fathers and mothers in the faith were before me, brings joy to my soul, and confidence.
With the psalmist I trust in you….. I say, ‘You are my God!’ How can I thank you enough that my times are in your hand? I have no idea, anymore than other human beings, what lies ahead for me. I can only pray that whatever life brings you will deliver me, with the psalmist, from the hand of my enemies—without and within. And I trust that you will not only save me in your steadfast love, but let your face shine upon your servant as well.
May I be so filled with the Holy Spirit, as Stephen was in New Testament times, that with him I may see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, And may I, even if put to death unjustly as he was, be spared from cursing, given rather to say simply as he did, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and Do not hold this sin against them. Amen.
Week of April 27 (Sixth of Easter) Psalm 66: 8-20
How wonderful it must seem to you, O God, when any of your children praise you from the heart. I want to be in that company, though I confess that sometimes you have been nearer on my lips than in my heart. I’m grateful for the psalmist’s insight in this call to praise you, both rejoicing that you listened to him, and confessing, in his case, If I had iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
Remind us all though the days of this week, wherever we go and whatever we are doing, that you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried, not to magnify our faults, but to bring us back to who we really are in your presence.
My father once wrote of our spiritual forebears that they came into your presence “few and poor.” There was no other way for them to come. “We come today,” he said, “with wagonloads of virtue.” No wonder you need to test our prayer offerings, not so much for their language--a sigh is sufficient--as for the heart or lack of heart you see in them.
Help me, Lord, to be the child I still am in your household of faith. Save me from pretence and presumption. Restore in me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit, so that with the psalmist I may say with integrity, Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me. Amen.
Gracious God, from all the roads I have traveled and travel still, it is always well to turn aside and seek your presence. The quietness here both stills my anxieties and renews my faith, remembering with the psalmist how in times past you have heard my voice and my supplications.
It has not been my lot, as it is for so many in this world, to face the extremities of suffering and death. But I have known when the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me, as conscience over sins in thought, word, and deed left me sad and sorrowful, and I suffered distress and anguish. I have called on you often, and do so again: O Lord, I pray, save my life.
Why is it that I feel no need, in your presence, to catalogue all that? Is it because, here and now, I see you as you are, and sense that simply coming back to seek your face is what you desire most? The wholeness I feel here is amazing. Who is there, anywhere, like you?
You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, and I walk before you in the land of the living.
O Lord, what can I return to [you] for all [your] bounty to me? Help me to lift up the cup of salvation. Help me to pay to you my vows in the presence of all your people. And help me, by the power of your Spirit, to offer others the rest and the deliverance there always is in your presence.
Week of April 13 (Fourth of Easter) Psalm 23
Lord, gather my scattered body and spirit this week, as I wait before you. Like a dumb sheep, ever in need of a shepherd, I too have gone astray. And like me, everyone around tends to turn to his or her own way. We nibble ourselves lost on promising tufts of green grass that we think will satisfy, only to discover on looking up that we are lost. Without you to guide and care for us, we are often confused, not knowing where we are, or why.
Oh to be more like the first Christian flock, who devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Teach me, Good Shepherd, not to abandon that flock, but to lie down in green pastures with it, beside still waters and right paths, wherever you lead.
You have not promised that our way will be easy. There is clear and present danger everywhere. Your Apostle Peter has even written that we will suffer, not only when we deserve to but when we don’t as well. Remind me, lest I forget, that your Son suffered too, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might become the shepherd and guardian of our souls.
Thanks that you prepare a table before me still, and anoint my head with oil until my cup overflows. Surely, because of you, and your shepherd’s heart, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. Amen.
Week of April 20 (Fifth of Easter) Psalm 31:1-5, 15,16
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, as well as the whole lineage of David from which Jesus came, you are indeed my rock and my fortress. To be thus sheltered under your Sovereign wings, just as all my fathers and mothers in the faith were before me, brings joy to my soul, and confidence.
With the psalmist I trust in you….. I say, ‘You are my God!’ How can I thank you enough that my times are in your hand? I have no idea, anymore than other human beings, what lies ahead for me. I can only pray that whatever life brings you will deliver me, with the psalmist, from the hand of my enemies—without and within. And I trust that you will not only save me in your steadfast love, but let your face shine upon your servant as well.
May I be so filled with the Holy Spirit, as Stephen was in New Testament times, that with him I may see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, And may I, even if put to death unjustly as he was, be spared from cursing, given rather to say simply as he did, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and Do not hold this sin against them. Amen.
Week of April 27 (Sixth of Easter) Psalm 66: 8-20
How wonderful it must seem to you, O God, when any of your children praise you from the heart. I want to be in that company, though I confess that sometimes you have been nearer on my lips than in my heart. I’m grateful for the psalmist’s insight in this call to praise you, both rejoicing that you listened to him, and confessing, in his case, If I had iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
Remind us all though the days of this week, wherever we go and whatever we are doing, that you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried, not to magnify our faults, but to bring us back to who we really are in your presence.
My father once wrote of our spiritual forebears that they came into your presence “few and poor.” There was no other way for them to come. “We come today,” he said, “with wagonloads of virtue.” No wonder you need to test our prayer offerings, not so much for their language--a sigh is sufficient--as for the heart or lack of heart you see in them.
Help me, Lord, to be the child I still am in your household of faith. Save me from pretence and presumption. Restore in me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit, so that with the psalmist I may say with integrity, Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me. Amen.
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About Me
- James R Hawkinson
- Nearly seventeen years into retirement, I am enjoying the opportunity to share thoughts and life experiences on a regular basis. This blog is part of a larger personal website at www.rootedwings.com. Your comments, thoughts, and life experience responses are not only invited but welcome!