Dear Lord, the lament of your exiled people in Babylon has always been, for me, a moving witness to lost innocence—something we all have experienced and continue to experience as your people. We have not lost everything, as they did in their unfaithfulness to you. Yet the sting of lost innocence is no less real whenever we measure our sinfulness against your sovereignty.
Why are our perspectives so limited? Why do we so often fail to heed your warnings, and why is it only on the far side of our disobedience to you that we realize all we have lost and are now denied?
It will not do in the long run to blame others, as if our being exiled were their fault. We know that, even if being human we do sometimes call down your wrath upon them. Help us rather to yearn more for your mercy so often offered us in times past. And then, Lord, grant us renewed trust in you and the spiritual strength we need to remain faithful to your will and way. Amen.
October 10 (20th after Pentecost) – Psalm 66:1-12
Sacred memories move in on me as I meditate on this psalm, Lord. Memories of your mighty acts in history, as with the psalmist, and memories more personal in home, family, and church life. Help me more and more to feed on those memories of your mighty acts until I am overcome with gratitude and spared from rebellions that seek to exalt me more than you.
I have made many joyful noises all my life, soaked in sacred memory. Songs of praise both sacred and secular have—and still do—renew my spirit. “Sing us a song, Jim,” my father often asked as we were relaxing at home or traveling somewhere. And then I would, with gusto, reveling in the privilege and blessing you for the possibility.
The music of others praises you as well when I hear it—in church, concert halls, and over TV or stereo, often moving me to tears.
Help me to keep singing through all my days, lest the texts and tunes fade from memory and dull my senses to praise you for it all. Amen.
October 17 (21st after Pentecost) – Psalm 119:97-104
I have heard it said, Lord, that this long psalm refers in every verse to your word. And I am reminded in this passage that clinging to that word is the key to wisdom and perseverance in the ups and downs of life.Your word, the psalmist says, makes him wiser than his enemies, even wiser than his teachers. In the prime of life he understands even more than the aged by living in your word. He does not “turn away from your ordinances,” for you have taught him.
Forgive me, a servant who ought by now to know better, for not living more myself in your word. Embrace my spirit in the sweetness of it, as well as in its challenges for living. Surround me, behind and before, with its wisdom, and awaken in me again its passion for knowing, loving, and walking alongside you in all of life. Amen.
October 24 (22nd after Pentecost) – Psalm 84:1-7
How is it, Lord, that distanced by time and space from the writing of this psalm and its author I feel nonetheless the same yearnings for your house it so beautifully expresses? I would also rather spend a day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere—even if only as a doorkeeper.
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
All are welcome there, even the sparrow and the swallow. Happy are those who live in your house … whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
People ask sometimes why I am always going to church. One of my forebears put it well: “Because I am afraid of what I might miss if I don’t go.” Indeed, Lord, because it is your house and you are there to tend it, I must go. For I have learned with the psalmist that no good thing do you withhold from those who walk uprightly. And I can also declare with him, Happy is everyone who trusts in you!
October 31 (23rd after Pentecost, Reformation) – Psalm 119:137-144
Letting you be who you are, O God, is surely the key to being fully what I am and was meant to be. Why is it then that so many run away from you rather than toward you and your word? Why even do I at times the same?
You are righteous. Your promise is well tried. Your law is the truth.Give me understanding that I may live.
And grant me a heart like yours, dear God, for those who as yet neither know nor honor you. An old camp song comes to mind: Lord, lay some soul upon my heart / and love that soul through me / that I may nobly do my part / to win that soul for thee. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment