Praying the Psalms - August, 2008

I decided recently in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for the day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing that week or facing the next.In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.


Week of August (Twelfth after Pentecost) Psalm 17:1-7, 15

Innocence and guilt seem to form the framework of this psalm of David, Lord. The fact that he, too, had enemies—people making unwarranted accusations against him—draws us into his prayer, for we too struggle at times against what seem like principalities and powers determined to do us in.

Surely David’s protestations of innocence at this point in his life are not naïve, as if he himself was righteous and sinless. Yet on this occasion he seems almost to think himself so. “If you test me, you will find no wickedness in me,” he says. Though we know better of him and ourselves, we have sometimes mirrored his protestations of innocence in our own experience.

What seems central here, in any case, is his concern to lay it all before you, which should be our concern as well. Who is right and who is wrong is better seen when we “behold your face in righteousness.” In all the peaks and valleys of our lives, only in beholding your likeness shall we “be satisfied.”

Week of August 10 (Thirteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 85:8-13

To read this part of Psalm 85 is to be reminded of Psalm 121: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” If we look forward in hope, dear God, it is surely because of who you are and all your greatness promises.

But I could not read vv.8-13 without glancing also at vv.1-7, which catalogue things you have done in the past among your people. “You restored … forgave … pardoned … withdrew your wrath … turned from your hot anger." Teach us again, dear God, that looking to the future with you, to be authentic, requires remembering your strong footprints throughout history. For you and you alone are not only the Omega—the end of all things—but the Alpha—their beginning as well.

How we thank you, Lord, that everything that will one day be has already been revealed by you to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Therefore we confess with the psalmist, that “The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.”

Week of August 17 (Fourteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 133

Living as we do, Lord, in a world of fractured primary relationships, this celebration of how “good and pleasant” life can be in the family of faith is inspiring. Remind us again, meditating on this psalm, that all of life is sacred, from the religious symbolism that the priesthood of Aaron has established to the mountains of Hermon and Zion where nature has memorialized your presence.

Lift up before us this week the places in our own lives where you have met us along the way. Help us to confess freely of each of them, “There the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.”

And cause us then to listen to the witness of others to your glory in their lives, that drawn by your Spirit in them and in us we may manifest the “good and pleasant” unity you intend among your own.

Week of August 24 (Fifteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 124

Forgive us, Lord, on reading this psalm, that we all too often think more of what you ought to do for us now than what you have done for us in the past. Thus do we make you our servant, reversing the divine/human divide, and pretending that we are in control.

Why are we so forgetful? How many times do we have to be reminded of your rescuing grace and demonstrated love? No wonder we as God’s people need constantly to be reminded (“Let Israel now say”) that “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,” where would we be?

“Enemies … floods … and raging waters,” both around us and within, have often threatened our well being. We all know that in our heart of hearts. Ought we not then cry out more often with the psalmist, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us [up] as prey” to such? Have we not escaped more often than we sometimes want to acknowledge “from the snare of the fowlers”?

Were it not so, Lord, then and even now, where would we be?

Week of August 31 (Sixteenth after Pentecost) Psalm 105: 1-6, 23-26

Today, dear Lord, and this week, I feel drawn to the psalmist’s reminder in giving thanks to the LORD and calling on his name, we must also “make known his deeds among the peoples,” and “tell of all his wondrous works.”

Why are we so hesitant to share with the world (note “the peoples”) what the you have done for us, dear Lord? Is it because the focus of our lives, despite your manifold grace, is all too turned in on ourselves? Can we be expected to witness if we are not growing—even reveling-- in our personal relationship to you and your mighty acts in the history of your people?

The verse of a hymn comes to mind:. “Of the time may we avail us, when to seek us you are near; soon the day of grace may fail us, and no message more we hear. Turn our minds to meditation on our need of your salvation; urge on all your invitation, to our prayer incline your ear” (The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No. 500).