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.