Rooted Wings Prayers

Prayers on Gospel Texts - May, 2011

2011-05-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Over a period of three years now, since April of 2008, this prayer section on our website has focused on the psalm designated for each Sunday in the Church Year. Commencing with Lent in March, 2011 we began using the gospel text for each week instead. Visitors will be helped by reading through the text as listed in each case before engaging the prayer. We hope in this way to both stimulate thought on textual themes and encourage devotional engagement week by week in each text's implications for life as we know it today.

May 1 (Second of Easter) - John 20:19-31

What a difference your presence makes in our lives, Dear God! We can relate to the despair of the disciples the evening of your resurrection, gathered in a house whose doors had been closed "for fear of the Jews.' How many doors are there behind which we have hidden when we felt threatened along life's way? And how many times have you not then come among us to minister peace and hope as our Sovereign Lord? Remind me today and throughout this week that whenever and wherever you thus minister to us there follows a call for us to minister in your name to others. "As the Father has sent me," you declare, "so send I you." Even, if like Thomas, we demur--not having been where others were when you came--you come again to reveal who you are and charge us once again, "Do not doubt, but believe." Lord, in your mercy, help us not only to respond in faith but to heed your call and share in your mission. Amen.

May 8 (Third of Easter) - Luke 24:13-35

How is it, Lord, that you always find us wherever we are? And why is it that you are forever seeking us out, even when we are not seeking you? The two on Emmaus Road were just as much in despair at the disciples were in that house whose doors were closed "for fear of the Jews."

These were traveling away from Jerusalem, despairing because you were the one for whom they had hoped, and unaware of your resurrection they felt abandoned and fearful themselves. So often do we, Lord, even knowing that you are risen from the dead. But you keep coming, among them and among us, even when at first we do not recognize that it is you.

Open our eyes, Lord, as you opened theirs. Rekindle the faith with us in the breaking of bread, and stay and abide with us ever after until our hearts also burn within us and we are infused by you with one holy passion to share the good news with others. Amen.

May 15 (Fourth of Easter) - John 10:1-10

Am I a shepherd after your own heart, O God, one to whom you regularly open the gate to your sheepfold? An do your sheep know and respond to the sound of my voice? Or am I only a thief and a bandit, intent more on seeking my own privilege than caring about the flock you have assigned me?

Jesus claims that all who came before him were the latter. "I am the gate," he said. "Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. Thieves come only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly." Lord, I long to be that kind of a shepherd! Purge me of all other motives in the ministry to which you have called me. And so infuse me with your Spirit that I may serve not only the flock as a whole but every individual sheep within my flock as well. Amen.

May 22 (Fifth of Easter) - John 14:1-14

We look to you, Lord, for comfort, and we never look in vain. Over the years we have learned that to look elsewhere is futile--if not in the short run then surely in the long. Increase our faith in you and keep us from trusting completely in anything or anyone else. Like Thomas and Philip we often let what sounds reasonable to us take over in life. If it does not seem to us to be reasonable--to some provable--then surely it cannot be. Thank you for your patience with them and with us, which both evidences your love and answers our questions. Help us, Lord, in light of the promise here offered, to lay aside finally our fears of death and dying so that we may live in the hope you give us that the best is yet to be. You are indeed the way, the truth, and the life. To whom should we look, now and forever, but to you? Amen.

May 29 (Sixth of Easter) - John 5:1-9

Your questions of us, Lord, not unlike your question addressed to the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years, are always both inviting and penetrating--this one especially. "Do you want to be made well?" Who wouldn't, one wonders. yet some really don't. Not so this man, who for thirty-eight years had no one to help him get in to Bethzatha's pool when the waters were stirred.

"Someone always steps in ahead of me," he said wistfully. How true. We all want to be first in line, even if clearly others are far more in need that we are. Forgive us, Lord, from so centering on ourselves that we fail to see the truly needy around us.

We have heard recently of the patience of the Japanese people after all they have been through--never breaking rank in line for the food and medicines they so desperately need. Help us to be more like that when tragedies come our way.

Above all, let us look to you for the healing you offer that never requires us to stand in line. Amen .

Prayers on Gospel Texts - April, 2011

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Over a period of three years now, since April of 2008, this prayer section on our website has focused on the psalm designated for each Sunday in the Church Year.

Commencing with Lent in March, 2011 we began using the gospel text for each week instead. Visitors will be helped by reading through the text as listed in each case before engaging the prayer. We hope in this way to both stimulate thought on textual themes and encourage devotional engagement week by week in each text's implications for life as we know it today.

April 3 (Fourth in Lent) – John 9:1-41

A whole chapter, Lord, given over to an extraordinary event, set in the context of an even more extraordinary conflict. A blind man healed, largely unaware of who it was that healed him. “One thing I do know,” he later told his inquisitors, “that though I was blind, now I see.”

How striking it is to me that in your presence, Lord, the blind are made to see, while those who have always had the gift of sight are proven blind. All of us who follow after you this day on your Lenten journey are caught up short—both by the miracle cited and the skepticism of those surrounding who, out of hatred for you and pride in themselves, refused to accept and believe it.

Help us, Lord, looking on both to truly see the blind man delivered and be delivered ourselves from our skepticism and unbelief. Have I substituted my religious understanding for faith in you? Am I offended in my own life by where you go and what you do that does not seem to sync with what I have assumed is proper?

Soften my heart to your Son and his grace. And help me forsake whatever pride and prejudice prevents me from glorying in his power and submitting to his rule. Amen.

April 10 (Fifth in Lent) – John 11:1-45

“The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” Martha said to Mary. “Ans when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.”

A week ago we saw people who ought to have known better resisting Jesus. Here we see a woman of faith anxious to be with him, to sit quietly at his feet, as later evidenced.

Lord, make me more like Mary and less like the scribes and Pharisees, who ought to have seen and known better. Open my mind and heart to your presence and fill both with your grace, wisdom, and power.

Deliver me as you delivered Lazarus from death. lest I miss the opportunity of being with you and living in you. Raise my mind and spirit from every temptation to trust more in my wisdom than in yours. And lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.

April 17 (Palm/Passion) – Matthew 27:11-54

The silence of your Son, O God, in the midst of his accusers, is an awesome witness to the fact that they had no real authority over him. He knew and still knows that every attempt to control his destiny by anyone foolish enough to believe they have the power is destined to fail.

He was in your hands, Lord, who alone holds that power, and you had willed in love to allow him to suffer and die for our sakes that you might raise him again on the third day for our salvation.
He had no need to justify himself in any of the human tribunals to which he was sent back and forth. For he saw your will in the distance and was committed fully to obey it, that whoever later might come to believe in him could have eternal life.

Sadness prevailed for a time, as we see in this whole chapter, but joy and light were not far behind. What wondrous love is shown us here, and humility in the face of certain death! Amen.

April 23 (Easter) – John 20:1-18

How sovereign you are, O God, in power, grace and love. We see the power in your raising Jesus from the dead. We see the grace in his garden encounter (yes, garden encounter) with Mary. And we see the love in the cascading good news that spread quickly to all your people who had been drowning in despair.

And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, Martin Luther later proclaimed, we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. one little word shall fell him!

There is naught to do this day but rejoice, Lord, in who you are and all you have done for us. Our joy is unending, for you have willed to save us—even from ourselves. Let nothing hinder our praise this day. And let nothing tempt us to stray from the power, grace, and love it heralds forever. Amen

Prayers on Gospel Texts - March, 2011

2011-03-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Over a period of two and a half years now, since July of 2008, this prayer section on our website has focused on the psalm designated for each Sunday in the Church Year.

Commencing with Lent in March, 2011 we will be using the gospel text for each week instead. Visitors will be helped by reading through the text as listed in each case before engaging the prayer. We hope in this way to both stimulate thought on textual themes and encourage devotional engagement week by week in each text's implications for life as we know it today.

Ash Wednesday, March 9 (First Week in Lent) - Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

It's all here, O God. Reminders as ashes are placed on our foreheads that we are but dust and to dust we shall one day return. Not bad news, but good if, in response to Jesus teaching, we heed it.

We need to be warned against practicing our piety--a good thing in itself--not before God first but before others. So also are warnings issued here against pride in such matters as the giving of alms and even praying and fasting--not to mention storeing up treasures for ourselves on earth.

O God, save us from all self-seeking by planting deep within us the Spirit of our Lord. Teach us your will and way, and help us in our living to serve first the interests of your Kingdom. Amen.

Sunday, March 13 (First in Lent) - Matthew 4:1-11

What must it have been like, O God, for your Son to be tempted? Any why did the Spirit lead him out over forty days and nights into the wilderness to fast before he was thus enticed by the tempter?

Surely here we are at the heart of both the trauma and triumph of redemption. The battlers here engaged are no minor characters. This is a cosmic battle between your beloved Son and a fallen, once-angelic pretender to your throne.

Thank you, O God, that you sent Jesus thus to do battle for the likes of us. And thank you for the encourgaement of knowing he won that battle by using your Word.

Teach us to speak that same Word to all our lesser temptions, O God. Free us from the fantasy that we can deliver ourselves from evil thoughts, ways, and acts. Help us to so hide your Word in our hearts that we, following Jesus, may not sin against you. Amen.

Sunday, March 20 (Second in Lent) - Matthew 17:1-9

It all appears to come together in Jesus, O God--your beloved Son. Cosmic light, your voice of approval, and the appearing of Moses and Elijah--their lineage thus passed on to Peter, James, and John. No wonder the latter fell to their knees in awe and worship--rising at your invitation to see "noone except Jesus himself alone."

This was the first text assigned me to preach on in homiletics as a freshman in seminary. Well do I remember my own fear and trembling, trying to understand why Jesus, on coming down from the mountain, instructed his disciples to "tell no one about the vision until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

Like the early disciples, we need to truly be with Jesus over time, O God--to see and affirm who he truly is. Thank you for your patience with us as we follow him--both up the mountain where he is transfigured before us and down into the valley where he leads us toward Jerusalem and his suffering and death.

And yes, O God, bring us to see him on Easter Morn, as Peter, James, John, and others did, resurrected from the dead, true Lord of life and death. Remind us daily that Jesus, once come among us, now ascended into heaven, is coming again soon to establish forever your Kingdom he announced and began among us. Amen.

March 27 (Third in Lent) - John 4:5-42

Thank you, O God, that there isn't any "no man's land" to you, as there is so often to us. Like your ancient people, who never wanted to go through Samaria, we have places ourselves where we would rather never go. But every place for you is sacred, just as it was for Jesus. He had to go through Samaria, Scripture says, and he was tired. Yet even there in that hated place we note that "he sat down by Jacob's well."

How significant that was in all that followed, Lord, as he engaged in conversation with a Samaritan woman. What was in her little life became tied to what more there was to life--in Jesus, of course, but also in the whole biblical saga going back in this case to Jacob.

Thank you, Lord, how you catch all of us unaware, whatever our name, no matter where we live or what we have done and are doing. And thank you for the heart of love with which you both are aware of our inner soul and long to heal our whole being.

Make us like Jesus, so living in you and aware of your mighty acts in history that living by your Spirit we will learn to see opportunities for witness wherever we are and go. Send us even to places we would rathwer not go and help us find there both the rest in you that is always present in sacred memory and the love for people you intend us to win for the Kingdom. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - February, 2011

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February 6 (Fifth after Epiphany) - Psalm 112:1-9 (10)

Fear of and great delight in your commandments, O Lord, is by the psalmist's witness the best we can bequeath to generations yet to come. Who we worship and thus become in ourselves speaks volumes to those coming after us. If in us they see generous, just, and fearless people whose hearts are firm and secure in the Lord, their own confidence will be bolstered. The wicked may see such in us and be angry, but "the desire of the wicked comes to nothing."

Help us, O God, to have that perspective in all our living. Stay close by us in moments when we are tempted to wander away from you. Graft your Spirit into our living, and help us to reflect that Spirit in all we do and say.

Only in that way will we truly praise you, and bring both honor to your name. Amen.

February 13 (Sixth after Epiphany) - Psalm 119:1-8

As days get longer, so do the psalms, Lord, this one the longest of all. In but a few verses at the beginning, reminiscent of Psalm 1, the stage of life is set for us with reminders that those are happy in life "whose way is blameless ... who keep [your] decrees and seek [you] with their whole heart."

Your laws and decrees are lifted up in every verse of this psalm. Even so, may we lift them up every day of our lives. Keep us focused on learning and observing your word. Only so will we be kept from shameful ways of our own.

We need your help, O Lord, as we journey through this life. Simply yearning to be steadfast in keeping your statutes is not enough. We need and will continue to need the enabling power of your Spirit. Amen.

Sunday, February 20 (Seventh after Epiphany) - Psalm 119:33-40

In this continuing season of lights, Lord, we need the light of your presence to guide us. We need to be taught by you, given understanding into the mysteries of your ways and will. Turn our hearts and our eyes from looking at vanities and give us true life in you.

You have promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we are. We cannot hope to make our own way to you. But see the longing of our hearts for your righteousness and grant us life through your word and Spirit.

Deliver us also from the disgrace we always feel when your light shines upon us. Help us to see beyond the shadows of our own making the saving power of your light. And help us there to place our trust. Amen.

February 27 (Eighth after Pentecost) - Psalm 131

What beauty there is in simplicity, Lord, capturing in a few words not only the intense intense longing of our hearts but an equally intense confidence and joy in believing and belonging.

Save us from substituting great schemes of our own for simple faith in all you offer your people. Humble us under your mighty hand that we may be satisfied to live in the mystery of your will, even when we do not fully understand it. Help us, Lord, to put our trust in you and not in our feeble attempts to fully grasp all you are and offer.

Make us to be, with the psalmist, like a child at its mother's breast, feeding on your word and Spirit, and confident in hope. You have never disappointed those who look to you, Lord. Waken us to our need of the wholeness you alone offer, that we may every live in the only hope that truly satisfies. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - January, 2011

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January 2 ( Epiphany) - Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

Light tied to righteousness, mercy, and justice, Lord, the way life ought to be. King David recognized it, and called on you to make it happen, not only in his life but in genrations yet to come. No doubt you were pleased with his prayer, even if not always with the way he lived.

Does light from you, so much desired, depend on the symmetry between the way we pray and the way we act? In your Son there was no division betrween the two. Help us, Lord, to live out the things we confess to want from you lest we ask in vain. Help us always to remember that Jesus is the light of the world. Only living in him and by his Spirit will we be the light for others he calls us to be. Amen.

January 9 (First after Epiphany) - Psalm 29

When you speak, O God, power abounds. like the thunder over mighty waters. Your voice breaks the cedars in Lebanon, shakes the wilderness, causes even oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare. To hear it is to respond with all your people in the only way possible, with shouts of "Glory"!

Forgive us in this season of light for glorying, as we often do, in all the lesser lights that surround us daily, tempting us to let them point our way. Teach us, rather, your way, by holding us in the light of your Son and your Spirit. Give strength to your people from the throne where you sit enthroned, and bless us with true peace. Amen.

January 16 (Second after Epiphany) - Psalm 40:1-11

The power of David's witness seems to flow here, Lord, from the narrative of his life. He waited patiently for you to draw him out "from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog." His brokenness as a man, even while yet a king, brought him to that desperate point.

Sort of owning up to his desperation, he acknowledged that the Lord would not be pleased with his sacrifices and other offerings. It was only in coming forth as he was, saying "Here I am," that the Lord gave him an open ear.

Delivered, finally, of the scourge of his sin, he was set free to witness personally to "the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation." The grace he received could not be kept there, hidden from others. It had to be shared, spread abroad, if it was to be sustained in him. What a lesson in light, Lord! Every beam of it, sent forth by you, cannot be contained, but demands to be shared. Amen!

January 23 (Third after Epiphany) - Psalm 27:1, 4-9

Deeply personal, Lord, was David's faith in you. He did not fear others after discovering that you were his light and salvation. "The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

His faith was also focused. "One thing I asked of the Lord," he writes, "that will I seek after; to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple."

David knew that in so doing, you would hide him in your shelter in the day of trouble, and set him "high on a rock." He also knew that only in continuing to behold your beauty and inquire in your temple could his faith and focus be maintained. No wonder he plead with you not to hide your face from him!

Hide not your face fro us, either, Lord. We perish without you! Amen!

January 30 (Fourth after Epiphany) - Psalm 15

As light eminates from you to us, Lord, so must it eminate from us to others. Failing to reflect your light in our living, anything we offer others can hardly be helpful--much less redemptive.

Failing to "walk blamelessly ... to speak the truth from [our] heart" we evidence only the lack of light in our lives. Your light with have nothing to do with slander, doing evil to our friends, or taking up reproach against our neighbors. It calls on us also to stand by our oaths, even to our hurt, avoid lending at interest, or taking bribes against the innocent.

Only those who follow the light can be said to live in it, Lord, and they shall never be moved. Help us, Lord, both to believe that and to live it out. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - December, 2010

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December 5 (Second in Advent) - Psalm 72:1-7, 18,19

Thank you, O God, that you are a superintending God--caring for your creation and all that seek in your name to sustain and prosper it. This prayer, attributed to King Solomon, might well be our prayer as well--seeking your perpetual blessing in our own lives, and your watchcare over all within our charge.

That we can make all our wants and wishes known to you and do so at your invitation is a wonderful blessing. Help us only to remember, as vss 17 and 18 remind us, that in doing so we need ever to recognize you as the only one who in your sovereign power can answer them.

Only your name endures forever, and only your fame as long as the sun. You alone do wondrous things. Bless your glorious name forever. And may your glory fill the whole earth. Amen.

December 12 (Third in Advent) - Psalm 146:5-10

How wonderful to be caught up in all the ages of history, O Lord, as we await again the coming of your Son! You are truly the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Our God today, you were also the God of Jacob and all before him whose hope was in you.

As we ponder our good fortune, stab us awake to the concerns you have always expressed for the hungry, the prisoners, the blind, the bowed down with care, as well as strangers, orphans, and widows all around us. Ignite within us your passion to serve and deliver them both physically and spiritually.

Only you will reign forever. Our lives are temporary. You, God, the God of Zion, transcends all generations. We praise you and bless your holy name! Amen.

December 19 (Fourth in Advent) - Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19

How often in surrounding darkness we cry out with the psalmist, O God, to "let your face shine." It does not matter that we know well our own part in creating that darkness, being unfaithful to you, disobedient children.

Perhaps, like the psalmist, we cry out even more then. "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.... Stir up your might, and come and save us."

Reminders of all you have done in times past fuel our pleas to do deliver us again. How grateful we can be that you never despise such pleas, even if deliverance comes only in your good time and way.

And so we plead again: "Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved." Amen.

December 26 (First after Christmas) - Psalm 148

Why is our praise of you so faint, Lord God? Why is our memory of who you are and all you have done--not only throughout history but in our own lives as well--so short? Have mercy upon us and help us in light of all we have heard and seen through Advent and Christmas itself to return to our daily round, as the shepherds once did, "praising the Lord for all they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them."

You have create us. You have fixed our bounds, and those of all nature. And you call us once again--"Kings of the earth and all peoples. princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and women alike, old and young together!"--to praise your name.

Let that begin with me, dear God. Cascade praises for you from deep within my body and soul. Let them multiply in the praising until others will take note and enter in themselves. You have raised up a horn for all your people, praise fort all your faithful. We take it now in hand and with boldness declare once again your praise! Amen.

Praying the Psalms - November, 2010

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November 7 (All Saints) – Psalm 145:1-5

This day is special, Lord, in my own life as well as the church, for we remember and honor on this day generations past that have paved the way of faith for us, and enriched our lives. “One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts,” the psalmist says. How true!

How but through your Holy Spirit and their witness could we speak with the psalmist of meditating “the the glorious splendor of your majesty … and your wondrous works”? And how else would we be inspired to proclaim your awesome deeds and declare your greatness to those coming after us?

The song must go on, dear Lord, and let it be amplified in my life. Grant me the grace of proclaiming the good news day by day. Make me grateful for the privilege of receiving the blessed inheritance of all the saints in light. And help me to be useful to others in passing it on. Amen.

November 14 (28th after Pentecost) – Psalm 98

Thank you, Lord, for the breadth of your love and grace, reaching as the psalmist says “to the ends of the earth.” It is not only to the house of Israel that you have made known your victory. Your vindication has also been revealed “in the sight of the nations.”

Should I not then, with all the redeemed, “sing a new song” to you, in praise and thanksgiving for the marvelous things you have done? What a joy and comfort it is to know that your right hand and your holy arm have gotten you the victory!

With the psalmist I also invoke the whole of nature, the roaring sea and all that fills it, the world and all who live in it, with floods clapping their hands and hills singing together for joy.

Thank you, Lord for thus coming among us, and promising to come again. Amen.

November 21 (Christ the King) – Psalm 46

As one church year ends, O God, and before another begins, I bow to acknowledge your sovereignty. Truly you are our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. And because you are and everlasting King “we will not fear, though the earth should change” or “the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.”

There is, indeed, “ a river whose streams make glad the city of God,” and because you are in the midst of the city “it shall not be moved.” We claim no lesser God. “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.

You call us in the midst of tumultuous change to “be still” and know you are God, that you are exalted among the nations—indeed, in the whole earth! Teach us to hold to that
truth, and thus manifest the truth of it in our living. Amen.

November 28 (First in Advent) – Psalm 122

As yet another Advent has come at the beginning of a new church year, Lord, help us to enter fully into it with the joy of the psalmist. What better place to wait upon your coming again than in the house where you have promised to be present? Help us with a deep sense of purpose to plant our feet there, even as we hope once again for your coming among us.

Just as ancient tribes kept going up to meet you in ancient Jerusalem—bound firmly together—so may your people today keep going as we wait for the day of your special favor. For the sake of our relatives and friends we will also say, “Peace be within you,” and for the sake of the house of the Lord our God, “we will seek your good.”

Maranatha, Lord. Come quickly!

Praying the Psalms - October, 2010

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October 3 (19th after Pentecost) – Psalm 137

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.

Praying the Psalms - September, 2010

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September 5 (Fifteenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 139:1-6

Surely I am known by you, Lord, just as the psalmist was, for you are all-knowing, My awareness comes from the experience of being searched by you all along the path of life. I can attest to the psalmist’s witness that no matter where I am, in whatever place or mood, you are there as well.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too, even if in some moments disturbing. People often wonder why you are so persistent. They would rather not have you observing their spirit and life at every turn in the road. But if it were not for you and your persistence in pursuing us, where would we be today?

What moves me most, and leaves me most grateful, is your Spirit—who is among us in love—if judging of necessity, only to redeem, to bring us back to ourselves and to you. Thank you for that unconditional love, and for the patience and good will with which you exercise it in all of life. Amen.

September 12 (Sixteenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 14

Save us, Lord, save us, for left to ourselves in the midst of life as we know it, we often feel helpless. Though our experience is hardly as difficult as the psalmist’s was in Old Testament times, we often feel in our bones that it may well become so.

Enmity toward Christians seems on the rise. And increasing numbers of others, though not our enemies, look on us as irrelevant. Brazen evil and laissez faire attitudes threaten on every hand to unnerve us, and corruption abounds.

Strengthen our faith in you, Lord, and support us with your Spirit and presence. Be with the company of the righteous. Help us invade the darkness surrounding with the light of your word and Spirit. Restore the fortunes of your people. Then with Jacob we will be glad, and with Israel rejoice! Amen.

September 19 (Seventeenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 79:1-9

One can only imagine, Lord, how your people of old must have felt when they saw the defiling of your holy temple and the destruction of Jerusalem. The bodies of your servants were given to the birds of the air and the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth. Their blood was poured out like water all around your holy city. And there was no one to even bury them.

Being human, they responded in anger, no doubt as we do even today, calling on you to pour out your anger on all who thus lay waster your habitations.

But they also recognized that in some ways what they saw happening was what you promised would happen if they wandered from your way, and they had at least the grace to ask you not to remember their iniquity or that of their ancestors.

May we pray the same, Lord, in our time and place—humbly asking you for deliverance not because we deserve it but simply in order to be true to your name and eternal purpose. Amen.

September 26 (Eighteenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 91:1-6

What comfort, Lord, is given us in this psalm. And what a privilege it has been in a lifetime of ministry to offer that comfort to so many in distress. Your Word goes out with power to bring peace where there is no peace, and healing to spirit and mind even when bodies are broken and life seems to be wasting away. We have seen and experienced it time and again.

We stand in awe of the power of your word and the promises you make to those who believe. You are indeed our refuge and fortress. You will, you say—and you do—deliver us from the snare of the fowler and the deadly pestilence. You also will—and you do—cover us with your pinions. We know, because under your wings we have found refuge.

Continue to teach us, Lord, that those who believe in you have nothing to fear. And remind us how important it is, with the psalmist, to “live in the shelter of the Most High,” and “abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” Amen.

Praying the Psalms - August, 2010

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August 1 (Tenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 107:1-8, 43

We are called to give thanks for a reason, Lord, and the reason lies in recalling all you have done for us in times past. It is easy to forget, of course, and wonder then where you are when we need you in the present. But calling to mind your presence in times past, not to mention your mighty deeds on behalf of your people throughout history, is to know that you can be counted on today and in the future.

The redeemed of the Lord have been gathered, delivered, led, and satisfied time and again. And we are surely among such together with the psalmist. Let those who are wise give heed to these things, he declares, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord (v. 43).

Summer and time away is a wonderful opportunity for me to do just that, Lord. I have remembered your presence in my life since childhood, and am giving thanks for each reminder of the wisdom of trusting in you, whatever lies ahead.

August 8 (Eleventh after Pentecost) – Psalm 50:1-8, 22,23

I was summoned to court duty this week, Lord, and though it was delayed because I am out of state and will likely even be cancelled for my being over 70, strange now to be reminded that you too summon me and all your people—indeed the whole earth—to come before you. And from your summons there is no reprieve. It is we who will be judged, my faithful ones as you put it, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice (v.5).

You summon us to judgment. You--the mighty one, God the Lord--will speak. I will testify against you, you say. Why? Not for our sacrifices to you evidently, but for the lack of thanksgiving with which we offer them, their emptiness void of the vows that should always accompany them.

Your warning is stark. Those who forget you will be torn apart and there will be no one to deliver. But the promise remains even yet to those who repent and bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice. To all who go the right way, says the Lord, I will show the salvation of God.

August 15 (Twelfth after Pentecost) – Psalm 80: 1,2, 8-19

Thank you, Lord, for the psalmist’s plea to come to us, you who are enthroned upon the cherubim. We know we need much more than we can ever supply to you. What we need is you yourself, coming to us, you who lead Joseph like a flock. And we cry out with the psalmist, Stir up your might, and come to save us.

As before you called on us to remember your mighty acts, so now we call on you to remember as well. You brought a vine out of Egypt, you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it…. Why have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?

We plea to you, even as in times past you have pled with us. Look down from heaven and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted…. Give us life, and we will call on your name…. Let your face shine, that we may be saved.

August 22 (Thirteenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 71: 1-6

If King David needed deliverance, O Lord, how much more to we who follow in his train? In you alone is our refuge, sinful like him as we are, and wayward. Short of taking refuge in you we live in shame. Only your righteousness can deliver and rescue us. Unless you incline you ear toward us we are lost.

Surrounded by our enemies as well as yours, we need you to be our strong fortress. Only you can deliver us from the hands of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

Do not leave me to myself, O Lord. Let my praise be of you and my hope continually in you.

August 29 (Fourteenth after Pentecost) – Psalm 81: 1, 10-16

Memories again, Lord, confront us with the psalmist. Good memories, as when you delivered us in power and love. But bad memories too, memories of our faithlessness, even our rebellion against you. It is hard to hear you say, My people did not listen to my voice. Israel would not submit to me.

So when that happened you gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. Might you be expected to do the same to us? And are you, in fact, doing it in our land even now?

O Lord, have mercy. Help us to hear your pleading: O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! Then I would quickly subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes…. I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.

Praying the Psalms - July, 2010

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July 4 (Sixth after Pentecost) - Psalm 30

Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. I thank you that in the spirit of the psalmist I can pray that prayer. I thank you too that, knowing myself as I do, and familiar with the darker places in my being, I can cry out for mercy and deliverance, confident that you will hear my cry and respond.

There you are, in the welcome reminder that your anger is but for a moment, your favor for a lifetime. With the hymnwriter, "I hate the sins that made you mourn and drove you from my breast." Yet, given your faithfulness, while my weeping may linger for a night, joy comes with the morning.

Time and again, Lord, you have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.

Deliver me now, Lord, once again. Blot out my transgressions, which are ever before me, and make me pure within, Amen.

July 11 (Seventh after Pentecost) - Psalm 25:1-10

As the psalmist's plea for forgiveness is also here a prayer for guidance, so is mine, O Lord. Lest you build the house, we labor in vain who build it. How many times have I sought to conquer sin in my own strength, even with good intentions, only to see my efforts fail?

Make we to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Be mindful of your mercy and tend this wandering sheep in your fold. According to your steadfast love, remember me, and guide me in the way everlasting.

Instruct and humble and teach and keep me in your way. Who have I in heaven but you, and to whom else shall I go for the words of eternal life? All your paths are steadfast love and faithfulness. Hold me close to you and keep my will in covenant with yours. Amen.

July 18 (8th in Pentecost) - Psalm 62

How is it, Lord, that even as I plea for forgiveness and guidance you deign to call me to proclaim who you are and will ever be? "Trust in him at all times, O people," you make me say. "Pour out your heart before him, God is a refuge for us."

You fill me with solemn warnings for others: "Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion," you make me proclaim. "In the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them."

Do you make me speak at one and the same time as you make me listen? Evidently so. "Once God has spoken, twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, that steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay all according to their work."

Keep me at work for you, Lord, that I do not work in vain. Amen.

July 25 (Ninth after Pentecost) - Psalm 85

Praying as I have this month, Lord--for forgiveness, guidance, and confidence to proclaim your power and glory--now turns to pleading with you on behalf of your people.

"Restore us again, O God of our salvation.... Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you. Show us your steadfsat love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.... Let us hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts."

You have both promised, O Lord, and taught me to proclaim, that you will give what is good, and that righteousness will go before you and make a path for your steps.

O Lord, come and make it happen in our common life as human beings, until steadfast love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss each other, and earth is drawn back to you. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - June, 2010

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June 6 (Second after Pentecost) - Psalm 146

How grateful I am, O Lord, for sacred reminders that keep before me the things that remain. To trust in human beings, even those of high office or degree, is sooner or later to be let down, disappointed, even disallusioned. When their breath departs, they return to the earth, and on that very day their plans perish.

More and more, it seems, I am comforted by reminders that you alone are completely trustworthy. Hope in you is never in vain, either for me or for the whole human family. You keep faith forever. You execute justice for the oppressed. You give food to the hungry. And you alone really satisfy the hungry heart.

In the world, your Son once told us, we will have tribulation. But you have overcome the world, and to live in you and by your Spirit is to have peace, and be of good cheer. You alone, O God, are forever. Renew this day our trust in you and awaken our praise. Amen.

June 13 (Third after Pentecost) - Psalm 32

To be strong, O God, and let our heart take courage, we need continually to wait on you, for the resources we need are not there when left to ourselves. We believe but need deliverance from our disbelief, and our transgressions are ever before us. Have I not often had to confess with the hymn-writer, I hate the sins that made thee mourn and drove thee from my breast?

Thank you, Lord, for transgressions forgiven and for sin covered by your grace. Thank you for imputing righteousness to me when there was none. And help me out of the gratitude I now feel in this moment to be free of every temptation to hide my transgressions from you.

Let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Amen.

June 20 (Fourth after Pentecost) - Psalm 42 and 43

Longings for you never cease in me, Lord. Yet seeking your presence and influence in my life I know also your absence, which only heightens my longings within.

Sometimes it helps to recall why, which requires confession with the psalmist: These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multiple keeping festival.

Why, then, also with the psalmist, are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Why if not for failure to live in sacred memory and thus hope in God alone?

O send out your light, and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. Amen.

June 24 (Fifth after Pentecost) - Psalm 77

In times of trouble and doubt, dear Lord, help us call to mind--both in our lives and in the larger framework of human history--how you have worked wonders and displayed your might, not only in the midst of your world and your people.

Like the Israelites of old, it is easy for us to forget both your glory and your grace when life seems to tumble in on us and we are so troubled that we can hardly speak.

We are always in need of perspective, Lord, which only you and memories of your mighty acts in history can supply. Lift us above those moments of threat and danger in our lives that drain our faith and tempt us to think you have forsaken us. Give us patience to wait on you and hope in you, knowing that in your own time and way you will be true to your promise never to leave us or forsake us Amen.

Praying the Psalms - May, 2010

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May 2, Fifth of Easter - Psalm 148

It is early morning, Lord, and one cannot escape the psalmist's call to praise. All you have called to be is called in turn to priase you: angels, son and moon, shining stars, highest heavens, even waters above the heavens. Why? Because you commanded and they were created, you established them forever, and you fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

The list goes on. Also called to praise is everything on earth: sea monsters, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy winds fulfilling your command. Humanity, too: kings and all peoples, princes and all rulers, young men and women alike, old and young together.

What surprises me is also what is said of you at the end: "He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful." Ought that not be our greatest reason to praise you, that you actually praise us. Thank you, God, for your sovereign power. And thank you even more for your boundless mercy and grace, Amen.

May 9, Sixth of Easter - Psalm 67

Few moments pass in our lives without prayers for your blessing, Lord: "be gracious to us and bless us and make [your] face to shine upon us." Surely our needs are great and you have invited us to come before you night and day to make them known.

Too often, however, we confess to forgetting why you bless us, "that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among the nations."

Forgive us our penchant for hoarding your many blessings, spending them on ourselves without passing our witness to them on to others. Give us more gladness of heart. Help our songs to be so full of joy that we manifest our praise to you and thus multiply it in others.

You are forever yeilding our increase as your people. May you continue to do so. And may we going forward share our gratitude for the whole world to see and take note of you! Amen.

May 16, Seventh of Easter (Ascension) - Psalm 97

Surely the psalmist understood your majesty, Lord, and lauds it again in our hearing. In this season of Easter and not least as we celebrate again Christ's ascension into heaven have we not even more evidence of your sovereignty over all of creation?

Bathe us again in the splender of both your coming to us in him, and his leaving from us to return to your right hand--not as if to abandon us to ourselves but to send then your Spirit to dwell among us forever. Restore to us, Lord, both the glory and the grace of salvation in your name, that we may indeed be your righteous servants and joyful children.

Save us from all selfishness of spirit that diminishes our praise of you, and so come within us as to exalt your name with power. Amen.

May 23, Pentecost - Psalm 104:24-35

Thank you, Lord, for all the reminders in this psalm of creation's dependence on you: "the sea, great and wide, creeping...and living things both small and great," even ships at sea. "These all look to you to give them theiir food in due season; when you give it to them they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground."

All glory belongs to you. We spend our years as a tale that is told...and it is soon over and we fly away (Psalm 90). But you are forever, and we are totally dependent through all our days on you and your Spirit--both for the gift of life and for its sustaining.

Today we plead for eyes to see and ears to hear again your coming among us. Save us from evil days and the fate of the wicked who scorn your ways. Make us of one mind and heart in the body of Christ into which you have raised us by your grace. And fill us continually with your Spirit that we may manifest in daily living the fruit that comes of depending on you. Amen.

May 30, First after Pentecost (Trinity) - Psalm 8

What is man, indeed Lord, that you should be mindful of him? O blessed Trinity, in whom we live and move and have our being, deliver us from the awful pride inherent in shutting ourselves off from you. Help us to remain open to the heavens that declare your glory and become again like little babes and sucklings in whom you have founded a bulwark for our faith.

You have given us domion over the earth, and are waiting always to crown us with glory and honor. "How majestic is your name in all the earth!"

Help us, Lord, to be all that you created us to be. Teach us your ways and empower us to walk in them. Build into our minds the breadth of your mind, and into our wills the disiplines of your Spirit. Then, as on the first Pentecost, we will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - April, 2010

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Easter Sunday - April 4, Psalm 118: 1,2; 14-20

Your steadfast love, O God, needs reaffirming--especially on this day, when all the clouds that obscure our normal vision and faith are broken through by the resurrection of your Son from the dead. Let Israel say it. Let the house of Aaron say it. And let all those who fear the Lord say it, beginning with us.

Songs of victory abound among your people all over this world today--praising, honoring, and exalting all that your right hand has done for our salvation. All because of you we shall not die but live.

Open to us, with the psalmist, the gates of righteousness he longed to enter, that we too may enter into them and give thanks, For you have delivered us in our day of trouble, and set us to building on a cornerstone that cannot be shaken. It is all your doing, Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Amen.

Second of Easter - April 11, Psalm 150

Can our praise of you, O Lord, ever measure up to your worthiness of receiving it? Will the worship expressing it in your sanctuary this day reflect all your mighty deeds in nature as well as in human history?

Help us in our worship--both private and public--to pull out all the stops on the instruments we use to praise you. Free us by your grace to offer you a truly many-throated laud, riding on the sounds coming from all the instruments gathered to accompany our thanks.

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! Amen.

Third of Easter - April 18, Psalm 30

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come;

our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.

Under the shelter of your wings, your saints have dwelt secure,

sufficient is your arm alone, and our defense is sure.

How dare we think otherwise about our lives, dear Lord, given all you have done and still are doing among us? Evil rides high on the swelling tides all around us, but we have found safely in the harbor of your love. You have heard the supplications of all your people over ages in time, and you hear us still.

Help us, then, to be strong and let our hearts take courage as we wait on you in your presence. Amen.

Fourth of Easter - April 25, Psalm 23

You are, indeed, the Good Shepherd, O God, for your are forever guarding our ways, causing us to lie down in green pastures, leading us beside still waters, and restoring our souls.

How wonderful it is to know in the midst of life with all its perils that you are present to guide us, teach us your will, and supply our every need!

Even when we walk through the valley of death you are with us. Your rod and your staff, they comfort us,.

Surely we can trust you through all the days ahead for us. Help us this very day to affirm that by choosing to dwell in your house, by your side, our whole life long. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - March, 2010

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March 7 (Third in Lent) - Psalm 63:1-8

A Psalm of David, we are told, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Indeed, O Lord, for the longing it expresses is better known by those who sense the wilderness around them, even now as he did then.

Does not my heart cry out in much the same way, with much the same language of yearning? You are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Rising early this morning to check my emails, dear God, I was greeted by a Facebook offer from a friend to sign in at a website offering all kinds of free movies. For the most part they were trash, a wilderness of promises only to entertain, to experience terror and violence and degradation. How could I who have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory profit from any of that?

Teach me, Lord, to seek you, to think on you, to cling to you in the wilderness of our times. Lead me to walk with you toward and into the only joys worth knowing, as you move toward Jerusalem and focus on giving yourself to gather us from life's wilderness into your fold. Amen.

March 14 (Fourth in Lent) - Psalm 32

Oh to be open, Lord, as David was, to confess both my need of you and the abiding joy of those to whom you impute no iniquity, in whose spirit there is no guile. Why are we so prone to run away from you, to hide from your gracious presence rather than seek it?

Many are the torments of the wicked, David acknowledges, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.

You are always ready to instruct and teach us the way we should go. Do not be like a horse or mule without understanding, you say through the psalmist. Let our stubbornness be curbed with your bit and bridle, lest we wander away from your side.

Make us to be upright in heart, and righteous. Then we will be glad in you, and rejoice with shouts of joy. Amen.

March 21 (Fourth in Lent) - Psalm 126

Longings for you, Lord, are often tied to the memory of better times in our past, when our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. In such times it it was recognized by others, even our enemies, that the Lord has done great things for them.... And we rejoiced.

Evidently that was not so when your people were led away into captivity. Times and circumstances change, even for us--like misfortune of one kind or another, failed health, even the aging process. Then we think things are not as they once were within and among us as your people.

To whom shall we then turn but to you for restoration and hope? Restore our fortunes, O Lord.... May those who [now] sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.

Thank you for the promise that ends this psalm: Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Amen.

March 28 (Fifth in Lent) - Psalm 118:1,2, 19-29

Help us Lord, this Lenten season, to see our lives in greater perspective, even as Jesus did on his way to Jerusalem. Help us with the psalmist, no matter our circumstance looking forward, to Praise the Lord.... Extol him... For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

To focus on you, O God, is to live in a world above circumstance--not above the pains which your Son and we experience in life as it is, but above their enduring power. We can always pray to you in confidence and be lifted above our circumstance. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.... This is the day [yes, this day and every day] that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Life changes for all of us, often in ways we do not like. But we can always and everywhere with the psalmist, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - February, 2010

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February 7 (Fifth after Epiphany) - Psalm 138

David gives you thanks, Lord, with his whole heart. Is that really possible unless, like him, we witness how you you have "exalted your word and your name above everything"? Somehow that makes sense. When you exalt your name above everything I feel too like giving thanks with my whole heart, And when I can witness with David that "on the day I called you answered me [and] increased my strength of soul" everything within me wants to give you thanks.

Sacred memory seems to be the key, Lord, doesn't it? Memories of your strong hand in the midst of our daily living, preserving us as you did David against all enemies and delivering us to fulfill your purpose for our lives.

Forgive me, Lord, for trying so hard by myself to be thankful, as if I had that power within me. Help me rather to look continually to the work of your hands until my soul comes alive with praise. Amen.

February 14 (Last after Epiphany, Transfiguration) - Psalm 99

We long, God, to see and know you as you are. We know that all those in Bible times who did experience your glory never looked directly on you, for no one can do so and live. Yet even the hint of your glorious presence would be enough to awaken our sense both of awe and praise.

What must it have been like for Peter, James, and John to see your Son transfigured before them on the mountain to which he had brought them? And what was it that so shook Moses in Old Testament times, or to your people traveling in the wilderness when you came among them in the pillar of cloud to deliver your statutes and guide their wanderings?

Come among us again, Lord, and show us your glory. Do not withhold your Holy Spirit from us. Reawaken in us rather the genuine sense of worship that comes only of your presence in the midst of your people, and the mighty acts by which you both guide and deliver them in the midst of daily life. Amen.

February 21 (First in Lent) - Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

What a great psalm this is, Lord, one that has been continuously comforting to your people since it was first written. To behold your glory around is one thing. But to experience it as comfort within is even more wonderful. To live "in the shelter of the Most High, and abide in the shadow of the Almighty." No wonder all who have experienced that say of you, Lord, that you are "my refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust."

And why? Because making you our refuge and dwelling place we know that "no evil can befall us, no scourge come near our tent." Living in you changes things, Lord. Even things that would otherwise seem unbearable to us are overcome by the strong sense of your presence and purpose.

Thank you that you still command your angels concerning us, to guard us in all our ways. Thanks you for answering us when we call on you, for being with us in trouble, and thus both rescuing and honoring us, even satisfying us with long life. Amen.

February 28 (Second in Lent) - Psalm 27

How wonderful to see how the faith of the psalmist--believing that he shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (v.13)--grows out of living with you over time. Remind me today and through this week how central my relationship with you is to the sustaining of my faith in you.

Good friends over time, not on the same level of course, but friends nonetheless. You, Lord, deigning to reach out to me, and longing for me to reach out to you as well. How wise the psalmist to ask for one thing and one thing only, "to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple" (v. 4).

Continue to "teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path." And help me to wait for you in the midst of life's busyness, that I may indeed be strong and take courage in my heart. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - January, 2010

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January 3 (Epiphany Sunday) - Psalm 72:1-7; 10-14

Behind and before us, Lord, are your eternal reign. David and Solomon as kings among your people, together with all who became kings in Israel after them, were in constant need of the intercessions here made on their behalf. Neither to them as individuals nor their kingdoms belonged the ultimate honor. That was reserved for you and your Kingdom, which is over all.

Even so, Lord, teach us our need for intercession, lest we forget. It is tempting to take the reins of life we have inherited as if we were now in charge going forward. Save us from that temptation. Intercede for us before your Father and our God. Grant us and those who come after us your justice and your righteousness, lest we seek for ourselves the power and honor that belongs only to you.

O divine shepherd, guide and befriend us now, that being filled in this Epiphany season with your light we may mirror that light in life around us and live our days in the power of your Spirit and according to your will. Amen.

January 10 (Baptism of our Lord, First after Epiphany) - Psalm 29

Why, Lord, in the maelstrom of daily life with all its challenges and demands, do we so often lose our way? Why do we so easily forget that you alone are our light and salvation, the stronghold of our lives? Why, beholding your beauty Sunday after Sunday, inquiring with your people in your temple, do we lay it aside on weekdays following, selling our inheritance like Abel for more instant gratifications?

Hide us, Lord, once more in the shelter of your presence. Conceal us under the cover of your tent. Set us high on a rock above those who offer us but passing fancies. Do not turn your servants away in anger over our forgetfulness. Take us up, rather, into your presence day by day and teach us there your will and way.

Great , indeed, is your faithfulness, Lord. Restore in us the joy of your salvation. Let us see gain your goodness in the land of the living. Give us the courage to wait on you that we may be made strong in the power of your Spirit. Amen.

January 17 (Second after Epiphany) - Psalm 36:5-10

Sins, Lord, are surely not our greatest transgression. It is sin, rather, the tendency deep within our nature to forget you and the blessings only you can provide.

Not unlike the foolish ones described in the opening verses, who "flatter themselves in their own eyes" and "have ceased to act wisely and do good," we too often are "set on a way that is not good." How wonderful in the bleakness of such living to be brought back by doxologic reminders from the psalmist of all we are offered in you.

Steadfast love, faithfulness, righteousness, refuge, abundance--all these await us in your presence. With you and you alone is "the fountain of life." And "in your light we see light." Thank you, Lord, that you still pursue us when we go astray. Bring us home again, where we belong. Restore to us the joy of your salvation. And help us to teach others your ways and bring them home as well. Amen.

January 24 (Third after Epiphany) - Psalm 19

There is no speech, Lord, as if vocal chords were necessary to declare your praise. The heavens themselves declare it, proclaiming your handiwork "to the end of the earth." A hymn comes to mind: "all nature sings and 'round me rings the music of the spheres."

It is not the heavens themselves, of course, any more than the mountains to which the psalmist also lifted his eyes (121). Our help comes from you, Lord, who made both, you who inhabit all things. It is your law, your decrees, your precepts, your commandments, your ordinances the heavens declare. Seeing alone cannot reveal them. They are seen only by beholders who see you in them, eyes trained and focused on scripture absorbed over years.

And in thus truly seeing, Lord, we are warned against seeing only and not living into what we see. We are also reminded that "in keeping them there is great reward." Pray then, my soul, beholding with the psalmist: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." Amen.

January 31 (Fourth after Epiphany) - Psalm 71:1-6

In reading this, Lord, Isaiah 30:15 comes to mind: "...In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." Those are words from your mouth and heart, Lord God, the Holy One of Israel--promises on which we can depend throughout our lives.

Forgive us for forgetting how dependent on you we are. And increase our faith, Lord, that we can depend on you to deliver and rescue us, to be our rock and fortress. Help us see in you and you alone our hope going forward, to remember and affirm what we have known from our birth, when we were taken from our mother's womb.

No one whose "praise is continually of you" can fail, Lord, no matter how tested and tried by circumstance. Grant us, then, the grace to take our refuge now and always in you. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - December, 2009

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December 6 (Second in Advent) - Malachi 3:1-4

O to be a voice, Lord, in the wilderness of these times--the wildersness of plenty as well as the wilderness of need. Satan stands accusing your high priest Jacob in Malachi, even as he stands beside us, intimidating, confusing the mind, robbing us of the clarity we need to speak your word.

Thank you for rebuking him and affirming your servants. Thank you, too, for removing the filthy rags in which we are clothed and reclothing us in festal garments--thus to signal the taking away of our guilt.

Give us now the grace to wait in your presence for all you would have us declare, that the surrounding wilderness might, as Isaiah promised, blossom like the rose and be fed by fresh streams from your Spirit. Amen.

December 13 (Third in Advent) - Isaiah 12:2-6

We sing often, Lord, that "your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light upon my way." How true!

If it were not for you and your coming to us, once as a babe and soon as Lord of all, where would we be.

The hope that is within us is full of yearning foir you. No one less can satisy those yearnings. Surely you are our salvation and you have proven yourself trustworthy over and over again.

Help us, Lord, to make you known in all the places where we live, and send us forth to unknown climes where others yearn as we do for your presence and power. Take from our souls the strain and stress and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of your peace. Amen.

December 20 (Fourth in Adent) - Psalm 80:1-7

It is Stir Up Sunday again, Lord, and we need your Spirit throughout this busy week. Captive to ouyr culture, especially this time of year, it is hard to focus in on what really matters--yoiur coming among us.

Let your face shine that we may be saved. Bring to memory all your mighty acts in history and in our own lives, and help us make our way to the manger where your Son lies who is our only Lord and Savior.

Let us hear the angel's song once more in the clear cold air of midnight. And let us return from the glories awaiting us by the manger bed gloryifying and praising God for all we have heard and seen. again, even as it has been told us. Amen.

December 27 (First after Christmas) - Psalm 148

Once again, Lord, we have seen and experienced for ourselves how gracious and merciful you are. Truly your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations.

Remind us moving forward how faithful you have been and are. Help us with all who by faith are righteous that you raise up all who are bowed down and give them food in due season. And help us declare in our world that you are near to all who call upon you in truth, fulfilling the desire of every human heart.

Tune our hearts to sing your praise and stir our minds to do your bidding, 'till all flesh will bless your name with us forever and ever. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - November, 2009

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November 1 (All Saints) - Psalm 146

Clearly as Scripture call on us to praise you, Lord, we do it better in the company of your people throughout history. For you are one one who taught our forebears before us not to "put [our]trust in princes, in mortals in whom there is no help." And through the great clud of witnesses we celebrate today from time immemorial we have come to know that our "help is in the God of Jacob ... who keeps faith forever and executes justice for the oppressed" and "gives food to the hungry."

And so, with all the saints in light, "I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long."

And as I do in company with others this day and week, I will both heed the call, in your name O God,, to watch over strangers, open the eyes of the blind, set prisoners free, and lift up those who are bowed down, recognizing that you and you alone will reign forever--as you have in generations past and will for generations yet to come. Amen

November 8 (23rd after Pentecost) - Psalm 127

What a gift, the psalmist offers us here, Lord--as relevant in our time and place as in his. Step back, my soul, from all your busyness, your efforts--however well-meaning--to do God's work in your own strength. "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is vain to rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil," we are reminded. Why? Because "he gives sleep to his beloved."

Even our children, Lord, are a heritage from you, "like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them." But they, like all we have and are, are gifts from you and only in honoring you do we raise them rightly.

Take us apart from life and the daily round long enough, Lord, to be reminded once again how dependent we are on your power and your Spirit in the building of our homes and the living out of our lives. Then surely, no matter what, we will never be put to shame when we meet our enemies along the way. Amen.

November 15 (24th after Pentecost) - Psalm 16

We are devoted to you, O Lord, because you have devoted yourself to us. As the psalmist witnessed, "[We] have no good apart from you." Over years we have llearned with him to make you "our chosen portion and our cup"--you as well as "the holy ones in the land, in whom is all [our] delight." We have also seen how "those who choose another god multiply their sorrows."

Because you have thus come and now dwell withiin and alongside your people, we affirm that "the boundary lines have fallen for [us] in pleasant places. [We] have a goodly heritage." Given your instruction and good counsel, we have learned the wisdom of keeping you always before us. And 'therefore [our] heart is glad and [our] soul rejoices.... [We] shall not be moved."

You, Lord, have shown us the path to life. "In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore." To live in you is to live indeed! Amen!

November 22 (Christ the King) - Psalm 93

Help us, God, in our daily walk never to forget the lessons of this psalm. You are our king, robed in majestyand girded with strength. There was never a time when it was not so; nor will there ever be, for "you are from everlasting."

Nature witnesses to that in the thundering of the flood's mighty waves, but far more mighty than they, as the psalmist says, "majectic on high is the Lord."

We also have learned that "your decrees are very sure." Therefore "hiliness befits your house ... forevermore.

Be with us yet, lest we forget! Yes, be with us yet, lest we forget. Amen.

November 29 (First in Advent) - Psalm 25:1-10

Time to look ahead, Lord, as another Church Year begins. Pentecost behind us, we begin the cycle again, dwelling in anticipation and hope as we await the coming once again of Jesus Christ among us.

We pray as we wait knowing in advance that in your coming we will never be put to shame. Yet in your mercy and steadfast love, which have been of old, remember not the sins of our youth or our transgressions ever since. Because you are good and upright, lead us in the right and teach us once more your way

Because "the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear [you], and [you] make [your] covenant known to them," we turn our eyes toward you once again. We are in great need of all you offer, and long to be ready when you come among us seeking our love in return. Help us now to watch and wait with patience and devotion for your coming. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - October, 2009

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In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit.

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.

October 4 (Eighteenth after Pentecost) - Psalm 26

From any purely human point of view it would seem so. Yet as we know in our own experience of faith, there is forgiveness with you, real forgiveness that blots out all our transgressions and washes us whiter than snow. Can it be, Lord, can it be?

What is integrity, really? Can it be claimed apart from your forgiveness and enabling power? Surely not! Yet given that forgiveness, which is total and real, ought we not ourselves be bolder in you. David seems hardly to be boasting. He seems rather to be yearning, realizing that maintaining integrity requires him to "stand on level ground ... in the great congregation" of your people.

Help us, Lord, not to vacate your house and our place among your people. Remind us through David that only in walking in faithfulness to you can we claim anything for ourselves. Amen.

October 11 (Nineteenth after Pentecost) - Psalm 22:1-3

This, too, Lord, is a psalm of David, and the mood swing from last week's is enormous. It reminds us that spirituality, which is walking in the light of your countenance, does not always leave us feeling pleasant or buoyant in spirit. Sometimes, like David--indeed, like our Lord Jesus himself--we feel forsaken, far removed from your blessing, not least when in obedience to you we find ourselves suffering.

Crying out for deliverance day by day in such times we are puzzled by your silence and in the night we too find no rest. Even those to whom you send us, who you place in our way, seem more to disdain than honor us. Is there no cure?

None, it seems, other than confessing our faith in you as the holy one, "enthroned on the praises of Israel." O Lord, teach us to cry out from life's struggles with Job that "even though he slay me, yet will I trust him," and with our Lord Jesus, "Into your hands I commend my spirit."

Help us to reference our places in life not by our meagre understandings of what they ought to be. Grant us rather that cosmic sense of positioning that sees every lesser trial in light of your eternal purpose. And when we tremble with fear, remind us that in every age past you have delivered your people, even as your promise in your time and way to deliver us as well. Amen.

October 18 (Twentieth after Pentecost) - Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 38c)

Every reminder of you, Lord, sets us free from the tyranny of our fears and sufferings. Who you are eternally and all you have done and continue to do in this universe of space and time refreshes our spirits. It also reminds us, given your sovereign authority and power, that all of nature and all of life exists within the boundaries of your will, which cannot be broken.

This week help us to lift our sights to the glories of your nature and work. Open our eyes that we may see, as the hymn writer has put it, and our ears to hear. Then open our mouths to sing your praise lest we waste precious time and energy focusing too much on ourselves.

Remind us that you are also Lord of the night and its darkness, and that nothing we fear in the night will ultimately be able to separate us from you.Surely you are pleased when we praise you. Help us with the psalmist to do so this week with all our hearts. Amen.

October 25 (Twenty-first after Pentecost) - Psalm 34:1-8 (19-26)

To be reminded, Lord, of your goodness and power, is to be blessed time and again. And as we remind each other from the storehouses of sacred memory throughout history and our own life span we are doubly blessed.

We are reminded of the ancient Te Deum Laudamus (Hymnal, No. 896) in which we are gathered together with all the saints of God in praise of you: the glorious company of the apostles. the noble fellowship of prophets, the white-robed army of martyrs, and the holy Church today throughout the world. And with that awareness we ourselves are inspired by recalling how "you took our flesh to set us free ... and overcame the sting of death and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers."

We also are reminded that "you are seated at God's right hand in glory," and "that you will come to be our judge. Come then, Lord, and help your people ... and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting." Amen.

Praying the Psalms - September, 2009

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September 6 (14th after Pentecost) - Psalm 125

How easily our confidence in you is shaken, Lord, in thought, word, and deed. Driven often by all the bad news around us we seek comfort in shelters that are no shelter, fabrications of our own making or the false advertisings of others.

Thanks for this reminder that those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever. How much we need that reminder day by day. Unless you build our house, as another psalmist has said, we labor in vain who build it. By getting and spending we lay waste our powers, and by listening to false prophets our only hope.

Guard us, Lord, with your mountainous grace that we may no longer be as those who turn aside to their own crooked ways. Save us as your people from the wiles of the wicked and help us to be so grounded in you as to be truly upright in heart. Amen.

September 6 (15th after Pentecost) - Psalm 19

Your Son warned us once, Lord God, not to be like those who seeing do not see and hearing do not hear. Forgive us for that tendency in our own lives, our dullness to your presence all around us in the heavens and on earth.

Sensitize us by your Spirit to the voiceless speech of the heavens that proclaim your handiwork, the sun that comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy. from which nothing is hid.

Give us also a whole new set of eyes and ears on this earth for your Word, which is perfect and sure and right, a true solution to our every need if only we receive and trust it by faith. Revive that sense of awe in us for you. Bathe us--body, mind, and soul--with every sign of your presence, and deliver us by your word from hidden faults of which, apart from your ploddings, we are not even aware.

Let the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen!

September 20 (16th after Pentecost) - Psalm 1

O to be guileless, dear Lord, happy in that divine innocence which shuns the advice of the wicked, avoids the path that sinners take, and will not sit in the seat of scoffers.

Why are the daily temptations so strong to be otherwise if not that, losing ourselves like sheep without a shepherd we fail to delight in your word and way?

Make us, Lord, to be like trees planted by streams of living water, which yield their fruit in its season, [whose] leaves never wither. Watch over us lest we, like the wicked, stray from your ways and lose not only our souls but the hope you have promised to the righteous. Amen.

September 27 (17th after Pentecost) - Psalm 124

Your providence is amazing, Lord. As I look back on my life and if I am really honest about it even now, I would have to say with Jonathan Edwards long ago, that you would have every right to condemn me to hell. If you had not been on my side all the time, graciously forgiving my sin, Lord, where would I be?

Attacks within and without from the evil one, always prowling about to seek whom he may devour, have been far greater than I could have stood alone. It is of some comfort to me that even Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German man of faith martyred by the Nazis, confessed himself "a woebegone weakling." But of even greater comfort, to me as to him, was the confession that came after that awareness in his poem from prison: "Whoever I am, Lord, you know I am thine!"

How can I ever thank you, Lord, for the many times I have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers? Indeed, with the psalmist, the snare is broken by your providential grace, and on this day and week I will praise you with all my heart that [my] help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - August, 2009

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Week of August 2 (Ninth after Pentecost) - Psalm 51:1-12

Summertime and Pentecost have me wondering, Lord. How do some relaxation from schedule and routine relate to the workings of your Spirit in our lives? Do they? It does seem that getting away helps us see both ourselves and you in better perspective.

Did King David's encounter with the prophet Nathan cause him, in later moments away, to write this psalm? Surely he was stung by the prophet's message to him. It was a real moment of truth. And out of it came the awareness that what he had done in secret was not hidden from you.

Much as I may delude myself momentarily in that regard, it can never be for long. For I know, too, that you know fully and in detail what I may succeed in hiding from others. My life, like King David's, is an open book on your hand, revealing not only my sinful acts but the intentions behind them as well.

Forgive me, O God, for all my misdeeds, and purify my intentions. Create in me a clean heart, and put a new and right spirit within me. For I know that only then can I truly teach transgressors your ways and see other sinners converted to you. Amen.

Week of August 9 (Tenth after Pentecost) - Psalm 130

Experiencing you as you are, Lord, in great power and glory, is never easy. Just as in your presence the prophet Isaiah cried out "Woe is me, for I am a sinful man and I dwell among a people of unclean lips," so must the psalmist have anguished over his sinful nature as well as his people's.

Clearly you have to judge us to save us, sinful as we all are. But thank you that "there is forgiveness with you" and we may thus be renewed. And thank you, too, that in waiting for you and on you earnestly we can be empowered by your steadfast love and grace.

Help us this week, Lord, also to know that we are not alone in this world, and that the redemption we seek, far more than personal alone, is communal. You have redeemed us, are still redeeming us, and will one day redeem us as individuals. But not only us. You will redeem Israel and the new Israel, your Church, i.e. your people in every age, from all their iniquities. Hallelujah! Amen.

Week of August 16 (Eleventh after Pentecost) - Psalm 111

What words can ever be worthy to offer my thanks, God, with the psalmist, for all the occasions on which you have heard my voice and my supplications. That with all you have to do in superintending the universe you have both time and the openness to listen to me whenever I call to you, is overwhelming.

I cannot even count the occasions when you have delivered me. Nor can I even recall in each case from what. Yet I know that you have done it throughout my pilgrimage and, indeed, are doing it still whenever I call on you.

What shall I, like the psalmist, return to you for all your bounty to me? With him I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on your name. I will also pay my vows to you in the presence of all your people. And I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice in the courts of your house.

Praise be to you, listening God, both now and forever! Amen.

Week of August 23 (Twelfth after Pentecost) - Psalm 84

Memories flood in on me as I read this psalm, Lord. Sacred memories of meeting you with your people in your house. Ever since childhood, when I first beheld the beauty of your dwelling place in the Austin community of Chicago, I have both seen and experienced it in every other place as well: North Park, Bethany, and Beverly, also in Chicago. Middletown, Connecticut on internship. Rockerfeller Chapel at the University of Chicago, in Paxton, Illinois, Hilmar, California, North Park again, and Winnetak, Illinois, as well as all the other places either visited or served before and since.

Everywhere you are even sparrows find a home and swallows build their nests where they may lay their young at your altars. Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. And happy are all whose strength is in you, in whose heart are all the highways to Zion.

Circumstances may change, as they have and do in life, but you remain the same. And wherever your house is and yet will be for me, I would rather be doorkeeper in it that dwell in the tents of wickedness. O Lord of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you! Amen.

Week of August 30 (Thirteenth after Pentecost) - Psalm 45

Love songs like this, Lord, are far more than tributes to an earthly kind, much as they may seem so on first reading. They are realy tributes to you, for you alone have invested kings with the right to rule and the wisdom and power to do it. I am reminded just now of so many who have borne rule in the church for me, some before I was born and others ever since, leaders called by your people and vested with your Spirit. Naming them in silence, I bless you for every one. Knowing that they, like me, have held and still hold the trasure of your good news in clay pots, I admire them all the more--for in their humanity, warts and all, they served and glorified you. Every one of them has had a share in who I am and I count them blessed.

And now, in the place of ancestors and alongside those leading as I write, as the psalmist says, you are providing sons--a whole new generation, rooted in the lineage of faith who will emerge in your good time to cause your name to be celebrated in generations yet unborn that "people may praise you forever and ever.

So does your song go on. Thank you for sweeping me up within it and allowing me to share in sending it on. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - July, 2009

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Week of July 5 (Fifth after Pentecost) - Psalm 48

Why have you deigned, O Lord, to come among us, if not to lift our sights to your true glory? We confess that it is easy in the pressure of daily life as we know and experience it to be overly impressed with earthly powers. No doubt the Israelites were too, as when they hesitated to enter the Promised Land from the south when they saw "men like trees walking."

Remind us through the psalmist how great you are and greatly to be praised, how beautiful in elevation is your holy mountain, "the joy of all the earth." Awaken in us the security of finding ourselves within your citidals where you have shown yourself "a sure line of defense."

Remind us too how the places you inhabit cause even kings to tremble, as when your east winds shatter ships and even the bravest scatter in panic. Let all your mighty acts in history boost our confidence in you. Teach us to take daily this week--even if only in our mind's eye--a virtual tour around your towers, to consider their ramparts and go through their citidals, until boosted in our own confidence we begin again to tell the next generation boldly and uniquivocally that you are God and you alone can be trusted to be our guide and theirs forever. Amen.

July 12 (Sixth after Pentecose) - Psalm 24

You have told us, Lord, through your prophet Isaiah that in returning and rest we shall be saved, and in quietness and in trust shall be our strength (30:15). Is that why we have been given some time away in summer, simply to absorb again what it is often hard to remember, that thole earth is yours and everthing in it?

Strip us, Lord, of all we have built and may even now be trying to build on false foundations. Help us to stand tall in your holy place, with pure hearts that do not lift up their souls to what is false, so that we may indeed ascend into your presence and receive your blessing.

Help us in our time and place to seek the God of Jacob who you were and are, the King of glory, that we might humble ourselves in your presence and let you possess our spirits. Cause us to see and feel your glory this summer, and fling wide the gates of our hearts and minds as fall approaches,, confident that all who seek your face will know both your power and grace. Amen.

Week of July 19 (Seventh after Pentecost) - Psalm 23

How fitting this great psalm seems in summer, God, with its shepherd-like themes. How good to be reminded that you are a gracious God, ready to lead us in green pastures beside still waters, ever longing to restore our souls.

You do lead us in right paths for your name's sake. In even the darkest of valleys you are with us, your rod and staff both protecting and comforting us.

And the table you prepare for us, even in the presence of our enemies, is forever overflowing with good things. You anoint our heads with oil and fill our cups to overflowing.

To all this there is no end. Your goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives. Should we not then be dwelling in your house our whole life long?

Like another psalmist (131) I have calmed and quieted my soul before you, Lord. I am like a child at its mother's breast. Keep me me in your flock, dear Lord, and lead me with all your people in keeping with your will until together, by your grace, your bring us to eternal life. Amen.

Week of Junly 26 (Eighth after Pentecost) - Psalm 14

Gentle as you are, God, in your Spirit and intention for us, surely there are times when even you get impatient. Why do we all so often run away from you rather than toward you? We confess that we are corrupt and, like our forebears are prone to do abominable things. Like mindless sheep we often go astray. And, yes, like people in the psalmist's time, we also give ourselves sometimes to perversity.

Surely it is not because we know no better, for who that has once experienced you could ever say that? Our problem is cleary the sin of selfishness, seeking and protecting our advantage over others, not least the poor and disadvantaged.

Remind us in our wilfullness of the terror announced here, the terror that awaits all those, including us, who fail to repent and return to you as Savior and Lord. And then, O God, true to your promise, restore the fortunes of your people that we, with Jacob and Israel of old, may rejoice once more in belonging to you. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - June, 2009

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Week of June 7 (Trinity – First after Pentecost) - Psalm 29

How, Lord, shall we ”ascribe to [you] glory and strength” and “worship [you] in holy splendor”? Are you calling us to greater efforts of our own, as if we might by strength of mind and will honor you as you deserve and want to be honored?

Thank you for the psalmist’s awareness that ascribing to you all these things is but reflecting who you are and what you have done and still do. I am reminded of the hymn, “Dear Father of all humankind, forgive our feverish ways. Re=clothe us in our rightful mind, in purer lives your service find, in deeper rev’rence, praise.”

In this Pentecost season, help us see and remember you as you are--whose glory is over the waters, whose voice is full of majesty and flashes forth flames of fire, who causes the oaks to whirl and strips the forest bare, who is enthroned over the flood and is king forever!

Come among us, Lord, in all your glory. Then we will ascribe to you the glory do your name. Amen.

Week of June 14 (Second after Pentecost) Psalm 20

We are so needy, Lord, and all around us are needs even more profound than ours which only you can meet. How wonderful that we can intercede for others, personally and communally, for help in times of trouble, for comfort and support.

How wonderful, too, that we can do so, poor and sinful though we be, in full confidence-- given the faith you have planted in us by your grace. “I know that the Lord will help … will answer from his holy heaven,” The psalmist said. And so do we!

Keep us at these intercessions, Lord, as well as all the other aspects of prayer that point us toward you. Save us from putting our trust in anything less. Our help is not ultimately in our military force or our economy. They, like strong horses and chariots in the psalmist’s time, will collapse and fall. “But we shall rise and stand upright,” if and as long as “our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.” Amen.

Week of June 21 (Third after Pentecost) Psalm 9:9-20

Even as we intercede for others, Lord, help us not to lose our own sense of who you alone are, lest our own faith slumber within us and not be awakened by your presence day by day. Surely trusting you and seeking you is central to calling on you. Help us to live in the richness of your mighty acts in history, and help us while living there to long for the fresh winds of your Spirit still moving among those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Both for our own safety in our own little world, threatened by those who hate us and would love to do us in, and for the sake of other peoples and nations who “have sunk in the pit that they made,” their own feet caught in the nets they thought would hide and protect them,, make yourself known—among us and among them.

“Rise up, O Lord! Do not let mortals prevail…. Let the nations know that they are only human.” And remind us as well, lest we forsake the sacred memories we share with all God’s people, and the Spirit who alone seals them in our hearts. Amen.

Week of June 28 (Fourth after Pentecost) Psalm 130

Surely you know, Dear God, the pain we sometimes feel in spite of our faith in you. Like Peter, invited to walk on troubled waters to you, we too often start sinking for lack of faith. Martin Luther knew the feeling as well, even wrote a hymn on this psalm (The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No 361).

How quickly we often fall from mountains of pleasure to depths of despair! And how soon we discover again there our absolute dependence of you. Sometimes, with the psalmist, we must only wait awhile and hope in your word. “more than those who watch for the morning.”
And then, and there, your steadfast love and great power to redeem restore us, as they restored Israel in times past. “Who is like this,” people in New Testament times wondered,
“who even the winds and the waves obey?” Who, indeed?

“O Israel, hope in the Lord … It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.” It is also he, and he alone, who will deliver all who cry out to him from the pits they and others have dug for themselves. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - May, 2009

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Week of May 3 (Fourth of Easter) - Psalm 23

Why, Lord, given the glory of Easter and this whole season celebrating your Son's resuurection, do we so often assign ourselves to false shepherds, even after Christ's warning concerning them? Is it out of fear or pride? Or is it simply caving in to cultural pressures? Augustine once wrote of the difference between the City of God and the City of Man. Why is the temptation so strong in us to give more everyday credence to the latter than to the former?

Many say the shepherd image is no longer known in the world, but the truth is it is still very much alive in most places on earth. Are we beyond admitting what Scripture says of us, "all we like sheep have gone astray"? And are we too proud to admit that the Good Shepherd laid down his life, taking upon himself "the iniquity of us all"?

Thank you for who you are, even when we fail to remember who we are. Help us, Lord, to hear our true Shepherd's voice in all the confusing and degrading sounds that everywhere summon our attention day by day and even hour by hour. Lead us rather to those truly green pastures and quiet waters that you alone know how to provide. Let your goodness and mercy, as well as your powerful presence, draw us out of ourselves and into your will for all of life. Amen.

Week of May 10 (Fifth after Easter) - Psalm 22:25-31

From the strong shepherd to the Lord of all hsitory these words carry us now, dear God. Tenderness is but part of your character as our Shepherd. We must experience and tust in you as Sovereign too. And, with the psalmist, "from you comes my praise in the great congreation"--which extends to the end of the earth and includes all the families of the nations, indeed, even all who now sleep in the earth.

Because you are Sovereign, we also know with the psalmist that "future generations will be told" about you, and being told, will "proclaim [your] del;iverance to a people yet unborn." And so will the songs of praise in us go on forever.

What a comfort to be in your care who cares for all. Help us this week and throughout our lives to be grateful that you are God, and that we can trust in you to accomplish your will not only in our lives but in all life--as you have accomplished it in times past and surely will in generations yet to come. Amen.

Week of May 17 (Sixth of Easter) - Psalm 98

Moving toward Pentecost through the tides of Easter we are reminded by the psalmist of the central role that remembering your might acts, Lord, pl;ays in our ongoiing faith and life. Without sacred memory we are left with little more than our own meager resources to face life from day to day. But drawn into memories we share with you people in every age trust grows in our hearts because of the marvelous things you have done. Truly your right hand and your holy arm have already gotten you the vistory

Lord, as we are thus blessed, help us "make a joyful noise" to you--and not only we but "all the earth. Let thesea roar, and all that fills it ... Let the floods clap their hands, and the hills sing together for joy" at your presence.

Thank you that confused as we often are by how to sort through the living of our days, we can trust with the psalmist that you "will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity." may we live joyfully and expectantly in that faith. Amen.

Week of May 24 (Seventh of Easter, Ascension) - Psalm 47

Thank you, Lord, for your providence. We are reminded of it when in this passage the psalmist witnesses to more than he realized. That "God has gone up with a shout" clearly referenced for him the Sovereign power you showed in the history of his people and well as his own. But the refernce for us is a reminder of your continuing work in taking your resurrected Son home to heaven on Ascension Day.

Thus is his song of praise and ours made one in the larger theater of life, marked by your providential will and hand. What was is also now and is yet to come in ways we will never see until, looking back, it is revealed to us by you.

Keep us waiting for that, God, and expectant. Help us not to go asleep on our marvelous faith. Keep us young in spirit, both by recalling your mighty acts in times before us and anticipating them in times yet to come. And while we bnoth remember and anyicipate, help us see your footprints in our lives as well , here and now. Amen.

Week of May 31 (Pentecost) - Psalm 104:24-34

Why a psalm about creation, Lord, in the week of Pentecost? As I think of it, why not? Isn't that what the coming of the promised Holy Spirit was all about--your creation of a whole new life estate in Jesus Christ. Clearly you have not abandoned the old estate, creation as it was from the beginning and is even now. But your Spirit, bringing to mind the things of Christ, clearly breathed new life into it.

How wonderful that in your economy, all of nature participates. As the hymnwriter has it, "All nature sings and 'round me rigs the music of the spheres." I nature all things look to you for life, just as we must, and when you withhold it "they are dismayed" and so are we.

Singing your praise, especially as we get to know you and experience your power and grace, should be increasingly natural, so totally dependent on you as we are. Breath into our whole being the praise we owe, and as long as life endures--in nature and for us--renew us in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - April, 2009

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Week of April 5 (Palm/Passion Sunday) - Psalm 31:9-16

With the psalmist and our Lord we do have reason to give thanks to you, O God, for your steadfast love which does endure forever. Yet as we pray this week to open to us the gates of righteousness that we may enter through them and give thanks (118:19) we are deeply mindful of Jesus and all that lay ahead as he rode through the gates of your holy city. He who entered in festal procession already knew that in a very few days the praises being rendered him would fade into cries for his crucifixion.

Grant us the grace to remember his distress, spent with sorrow in soul and body over what lay ahead, his bones wasting away outside and his soul within. Help us to feel the scorn laid upon him throughout this week, the terror all around, lest we take too lightly his supreme sacrifice. And help us above all to remember well that everything he thus endured was for us and our salvation. Amen.

Week of April 12 (Easter) - Psalm 118

What a difference in the climate of our lives this day has made over time, Lord, and still makes--given the glad good news of Jesus' resurrection! Who could have believed that your steadfast love endures forever when your Son hung on a cross between two criminals? And who among us would have believed it when they laid him, under guard, in a tomb?
Once, and often yet being human, we are blind to your enduring grace and love. But now, because of that grace and love in raising your Son from the dead we can say that we see and do believe. Help still our unbelief that it is so. Open wide to us the true gates to righteousness that we may walk through them into the light of your new day. Help us to trumpet the good news thus set abroad in your world, that people both far and near lost in their sin and doubt may come as well to see and know that Christ is risen forever. Amen.

Week of April 19 (Second of Easter) - Psalm 133

We have heard, O God, that foir the early Christians the first day of every week was another Easter, celebrating the resurrection of your Son from the dead. We have also been told that it was their habit at the death of their brothers and sisters in the faith, when laying them in the soil of earth to say, "Even at the grace we sing our song!" How could they have done that apart from the experience of seeing and hearing about Christ alive?

Renew that faith in us, dear God, so far removed from New Testament times. Remind us in our moments of wondering that the good news is real and true, and that time and distance have no power over it. Ravish us with your Holy Spirit, until we ourselves run from every tomb that threatens our faith, full of the good news of Christ's appearing.

And gather us, Lord, into one with the forebears of our faith in every age that we may be one with you and with them, each ordained with the Spirit of new life in Christ, loife eternal, life without end, life forevermore. Amen.

Week of April 26 (Third of Easter) - Psalm 4

Our somngs of praise must now move on with the psalmist, dear Lord, to songs of intercession. There are so many both near and far from each of us who have no awareness of all that has happened in the life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again of your beloved Son! Help us to be servants of his good news, vessels of his Holy Spirit. You who have poured so much gladness into our hearts and minds, help us now to share all that day by day.

As the memory of your footsteps in our lives keeps creating faith in us, as well as hope and love, grant us not to hide from our responsibilitiy to share our faith, hope, and love with others. As you alone make us now to lie down in safety and sleep in peace, so may we hold others in our hearts as you keep holding us, that safety and peace may be known by them as well. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - March, 2009

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Week of March 1 (First in Lent) - Psalm 25:1-10

As Lent begins, O Lord, all the reminders we need are here before us--the need to repent of our transgressions against you and others (v 7), to ask for your mercy (v 6), to seek deliverance from our enemies without and within (vv 2,3), and to pray for your guidance going forward (vv 4,5). Also present for our comfort are reminders of your character (vv 8,9) and your steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep [your] covenant and [your] decrees (v 10).

Help us to remember as we journey through another Lenten season that the new life we all seek has already been provided us by your grace. Save us from false efforts of our own to make our way to you. Cause us rather to see you again, coming toward us with arms wide open, wanting us simply to accept again your free gift of salvation and follow your Son's journey to death for us and the eternal life that broke forth then and still breaks forth in resurrection power.
Remind us, then, as Herbert Butterfield once put it, to "hold to Christ and for the rest be entirely uncommitted." Amen.

Week of March 8 (Second in Lent) - Psalm 22:23-31

Surely on the other side of receiving you, Lord, there is much for us to do. Praising you for who you are is part of that (v 23 a). So is standing in awe of all you have done for your people since the days of jacob and Israel (v 23b). As their offspring cannot each of us say with the psalmist that you did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; nor did [you] hide your face from me, but heard when I cried to you" (v 24)?

Can we not also bless the whole world by thus praising you for your work in our lives? Clearly you wait on us, Lord, to see to it that all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord., and all the families of the nations shall worship before him (v 27).

Turn us from preoccupation with ourselves to see, with John Wesley, that "the whole world is our parish." Help us declare boldly that before you shall who sleep in the earth bown down (v 29), that posterity will serve [you] (v 30). Save us from holding back the great good news of your love that all those around us need to hear. And may that great good news extend even to those yet unborn (v 31). Amen.

Week of March 15 (Third in Lent) - Psalm 19

We talk a lot, Lord, and need to listen more -- not least to your creation, where Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (vv 2-4).

Forgive us for missing so often that silent voice in your heavens where you have set a tent for the sun which scomes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a stron many runs its course with joy ... and nothing is hid from its heat (vv 4b-6). As the heavens decalre your glory (v 1), so must we--your perfect law, your decress making wise the simple, your precepts rejoicing the heart, your commandments enlightening the eyes, the fear of you that is pure, enduring forever, and your ordinances, righteous altogethr (vv 7-9).

Help us to tresasure these more than gold, and warn us, Lord, that in keeping them there is great reward, for in heeding all of them we detect the erros of our ways and are cleansed from hidden faults (vv 11,12).

Let us speak only after observing all this, time and again, that we may not only be blameless in your sight, but fruitful in your service. Let the words of [our] mouths and the meditations of [our] hearts [thus] be acceptable to you, O Lord, [our] rock and [our] redeemer (v 15). Amen.

Week of March 22 (Fourth in Lent) -107:1-3, 17-22

Thank you, Lord, that you seek and love to hear our testimonies to your power and grace in ourlives. We need to give constant witness to both. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble,and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south (vv 2,3).

We have all been sick through sinful ways and endured affliction because oif it, loathing any kind of help until we found ourselves lost and loely, near unto the gates of death. And we have known what it is to cry to you in trouble and be delivered by you, saving us from our distress by sending out your word to save us from destruction vv 17-20).

Ought we not then continually, with the psalmist, thank you, Lord for your steadfast love and your wonderful works to humankind? And ought we not also offer sacrifices to you daily that are worthy of you--both recounting your deeds in our lives in words, and amplifying them with songs of joy? (vv 21,22). We not only may, Lord, but we must. Help us by your Spirit within each of us as individuals and all of us together, to thus prosper your work and catapult our sense of your blessing into the lives of human beings everywhere. Amen.

Week of March 29 (Fifth in Lent) - Psalm 119:9-16

In this longest of psalms, Lord, there is so much to learn again in Lent. Yet what could be more central than to reminded of what every single verse within it reminds us--that living in your word is the key to new life in you?

Today and throughout this week it is about guarding our lives and keeping the pure according to your word (v 9). There is no question about the power available to do just that if we allow it to happen by making room in our lives for your word to have its way in our hearts and minds.

Help us to say as the psalmist did, With my whole heart I seek you; do not let me stray from your commandments. I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you (vv 10,11). Saying that with our lips and delighting in it as much as in all riches (vv 13,14) is surely key, if in fact we say it with integrity.

So also, Lord, as the psalmist makes clear, is meditating on it, fixing our eyes on your word with delight and the determination not to forget it (vv 15,16). We are well aware how tempted we are to take your word too lightly and thus disappoint you. Let us feel your sorrow over that this week until, livened by your Holy Spirit, we waken as if for the first time to the wonder you long for us to experience in all of it. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - February, 2009

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Early last year, in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship at Salem, I decided 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 decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit.

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 February 1 (Fourth after Epiphany) – Psalm 111

How can a heart be whole, Lord, except in “the company of the upright, in the congregation”? Gathered by your Spirit and Word, we are fed by leaders you have called to speak that Word in that Spirit. And our hearts are stirred by the reminders they offer us of “the greatness of your works … that are established forever.”

Thus do you manifest to your gathered people “the power of your works, in giving them the heritage of the nations.” And thus have you also inspired them to “perform those works, as you have, “in faithfulness and uprightness.”

Remind us again this day and week that in you alone can we and our world be made whole. Seal in our hearts and fix in our minds the constant awareness that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and that “all who practice it have a good understanding.”
We await your Spirit, even as we sing your praise. Ja!

Week of February 8 (Fifth after Epiphany) – Psalm 147:11-20

Have we not known, Lord, and have we not been told from the beginning that it is you and you alone who sit above the circle of the earth from creation to the end of time? And have we not ourselves witnessed the range of your power and goodness to which the psalmist testifies?

You alone build up your people, gathering to yourself even the outcasts among us. You lift up the downtrodden and cast the wicked to the ground. Before we were created you determined the number of the stars and gave them their names. And sovereign over nature still, you cover the heavens with clouds, prepare rain for the earth, and make grass grow on the hills.

Forgive us for losing sight of the range of your power and goodness, and failing so often to pay attention, for priding ourselves rather in our power and prowess. Help us, illumined by the light that comes only from you, to remember that what you ask of us is not to prove our worthiness but to fear you in true faith, and hope in your steadfastness day by day. Amen.

Week of February 15 (Sixth after Epiphany) – Psalm 30

Your voice, O Lord, is everywhere, and full of majesty. It is “over the waters … breaks cedars … flashes forth flames of fire … shakes the wilderness … causes oaks to whirl … strips the forest bare.” Clearly, all authority belongs finally to you.

Only in obedience to your word through your prophet was Naaman the Syrian cleansed of his leprosy in Old Testament times. Only though your Son was another leper likewise cleansed in New Testament times. And such healings of body like salvation itself—which renders us whole—is only given at your command.

Oh that we, like the Apostle Paul, would be as passionate about offering ourselves to you as instruments of your power. Free us from seeking crowns of our own, from focusing on lesser disciplines fueled by pride and our human longings for praise.

This week “I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up … and you have healed me.” And as I sing your praise, so will I call your faithful ones everywhere to give thanks to your holy name. Amen.

Week of February 22 (Last after Epiphany - Transfiguration) – Psalm 50:1-6

In high and holy moments throughout history we have heard about and known, “The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting.” Thus did you summon the earth when Elijah ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, and when Jesus, his only begotten Son, was transfigured on a mountaintop in the presence of his disciples.

The psalmist says, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth…. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth… ‘Hear, O my people, and I will speak.’” And when you speak it is clear that you alone are our sovereign and judge.

Elisha, Lord, wanted a double portion of the spirit you gave to Elijah but Elijah could not grant that. The disciples wanted to take glory into their own hands and build three dwellings in response to Jesus’ transfiguration, but your voice from heaven made it immediately clear that their first priority was not to build but to listen to his beloved Son.

Lord, when you call on us, whether on some mountaintop or in the valleys of our lives, help us to stop and listen for the blessing only you can supply. Forgive us for trying so often to take your Kingdom into our own hands. Help us rather to simply receive it and glory in it as the gift it is from your gracious hand. And help us then to serve you in ways you deem appropriate to our nature and your sovereign will. Amen.

Praying the Psalms - January, 2009

2009-01-01T01:23:00.000-08:00

Several months ago in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship I decided 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 open myself as I am to both listen and speak.

Week of January 4 (Second after Christmas) - Psalm 147:12-20

The air is chilling as a New Year begins, God. The northern atmosphere where we live is part of that, of course, but there is more to the chill than that. A world in turmoil sends shivers down all our spines. Our sagging economy and the growing numbers of unemployed are cascading into a societal turmoil unlike anything we have seen in recent years.

To many the psalmist's call to "Praise the Lord," who "strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you" may therefore seem unrealistic. Yet read in context his reasons for turning to you are clear: not to hide from our circumstance but recognize your sovereignty and trust in your promises to your people in all the chaos surrounding

Save us, dear God, from the enduring chill of your cold--a far greater danger to us than anything we are now facing.. Bring us rather out of the temporary chills of our own making into the warmth and light which flow forever from your throne.

Week of January 11 (First after Epiphany) - Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

In this season of light, Dear Lord, help us with King David to reflect the light that comes only from you. Save us from every presumption that we in ourselves hold the keys to life--whether by race, gender, education, intelligence, good fortune, or whatever else we often hide behind to mask our weakness.

Focus our minds and train our hearts on your righteousness and your justice. Let other nations and peoples see in us fresh manifestations of your glory when we, in your name, have pity on the weak and needy and redeem their life from oppression and violence.

We long, Dear God, to make a new start with you. Lift us, therefore, into your presence, that we like Moses of old may shine with your glory wherever life takes us this week and this year.

Week of January 18 (Second after Epiphany) - Psalm 29

Your voice, O Lord, "is over the waters." It is "powerful [and] full of majesty." Your voice "breaks the cedars ... flashes forth flames of fire ... shakes the wilderness ... [and] strips the forests bare." You sit "enthroned over the flood ... king forever, and on you we depend for both wisdom and strength.

Could it be, however, that even knowing such is not enough? The psalmist calls on us and all heavenly beings to "ascribe to the Lord glory and strength." He further enjoins us to "worship the Lord in holy splendor."

Send your glory among us, O God, that seeing we may truly believe and just as truly praise you day and night from the heart. You clearly continue to do your part as the God and Father of us all. Help us no less to do our part as your children in reflecting your glory to each other and everyone around us.

Week of January 25 (Third after Epiphany) - Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

Why is it, O God, that we so often run away from you rather than toward you? Surely King David tried that, too, but to his eternal credit he came to see that there was no place he could go where you were not already present.

Whether in wakening to life in the morning or going to sleep at night you were there for David. Even before a word is on my tongue," he said, "you know it completely." And ascending to heaven or making his bed in Sheol made no difference to you. He could not run away from you, for you were everywhere he went.

With all David had to confess such awareness might well have done him in. Is that why we try so hard ourselves to hide? Help us like David, Lord, to discover that being found by you is not to be condemned but to be redeemed. So let the searchlight of your eternal presence find any wickedness in us this week. Then turning us away from all that to praise you for your goodness and love lead us in the way everlasting.

Praying the Psalms - December, 2008

2008-12-01T02:00:00.000-08:00

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

Praying the Psalms - November, 2008

2008-11-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Praying the Psalms - October, 2008

2008-10-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Praying the Psalms - September, 2008

2008-09-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Praying the Psalms - August, 2008

2008-08-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

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).

Praying the Psalms - July, 2008

2008-07-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

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!”

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Praying the Psalms - June, 2008

2008-06-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

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.”

Praying the Psalms - May, 2008

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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.

Praying the Psalms - April, 2008

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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.