Praying the Psalms - December, 2009

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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

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.