Do you ever talk to yourself? Like, out loud? Am I a crazy person if I do? Because I do. I talk to myself when I’m embarrassed by something I’ve done or said, which seems to happen much too often…. I talk to myself when I’m thinking through my to-do list. And when I’m not talking to myself out loud, I’m definitely talking to myself internally. My inner monologue consumes most of my day.

The most influential person in your life is you. No one talks to you more often than you do. How do you talk to yourself? Are you aware of the tone you use? Are you even aware of the fact that you’re talking to yourself? Indeed, we talk to ourselves so often that we often aren’t very conscience of what we’re saying.

One of the primary practices of meditation is becoming aware of the ways in which you talk to yourself.

Psalm 103 is an example of meditative prayer:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul  
And all that is within me” (103:1 ESV)

Prayer that is meditation is a very direct conversation with your soul. The first few lines of Psalm 103 are actually a command:

“Bless the lord, O my soul
And forget not all his benefits.” (103:2)

In contrast to the direct, meditative language of Psalm 103, Psalm 102 is the prayer of an afflicted person. It is a Psalm of distress and lament, a prayer by somebody who is entirely overwhelmed by the calamity and loudness of human experience:

“I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
like an owl  of the waste places;
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop” (102:6-7)

These birds are pictures of intense loneliness. When I am at the mercy of loneliness and isolation –indeed, when I am at the mercy of myself – I seem to have no control over the inner monologue that damns me. This is when I am most susceptible to the voice that says: “You are worthless and alone.”

Psalm 103 challenges that voice. In doing so, it challenges our cultural admonishment to “Listen to your heart.” Though feelings should be felt, they ought not dictate your Being. Don’t misunderstand me: Your heart needs to be listened to; it is necessary to become aware of the turnings of your heart precisely so that you can speak Truth to it. Meditative prayer is the practice of taking your heart in hand and showing it some of your most basic realities. Specifically, the Truth of God as recorded by David in Psalm 103:

I have a side hustle at Justice, the clothing store for young girls. I get klutzy high fives from six year olds who purchased their first backpack and hugs from girls who are afraid of moving to California tomorrow (let’s get her a comfy pillow and jacket for the plane).

Wednesday I clocked in and walked in the back to get my name tag. In the process, I accidentally drop another worker’s tag, Kate, behind a folded table in a location that makes it almost impossible to retrieve the thing you lost. I sighed. Part of me wanted to just walk away. I’d never met Kate, and though I’m sure she was a lovely person, I didn’t have any loyalties to her. I’m sure she would find the name tag eventually and after some laboring would be able to finagle her way into getting it back. But I just couldn’t do it. I lurched over the table, the sides of it piercing into my stomach and knocking the breath out of me. I’m a person with integrity, dang it. I’m going to get this name tag! I reached to grab the tag and then realized that there was no way back up without falling first, which I did, and making a bunch of Serena Williams tennis match noises. After finally

Psalm 98:1-3 (ESV)

1 Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
2 The Lord has made known his salvation;
he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

What is the new song we ought to sing to the Lord today? Last week Maddie beautifully wrote about God as judge. How God can be both

merciful and judging. It got me thinking quite a bit this week about the idea of God our judge, about justice, and about mercy. Psalm 98:8-9 (ESV)

8 Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
9 before the Lord, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

My favorite image of justice is the way that Jesus interacts with the people of his time. In every interaction, every opportunity that he gets, Jesus raises up the lowly and puts down the proud. Consider how Isaiah puts it;

Isaiah 40:4 (ESV)

4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

Remember that Jesus is God’s greatest revelation of God’s character to us. We have to interpret every word, every action, every verse through the lens of Jesus. I love how Brian Zahnd puts it:

“God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We have not always know what God was like…But now we do.”

Think about this; God’s judgement is Jesus. God’s final judgement on his creation is love incarnate. Jesus is the great equalizer; all that is low will brought up, all that is high will be brought low.

Jesus always errs toward the low, the downtrodden, the left out, the

“Wow. I never would have guessed that. Your dad’s not that scary.”

When I tell people that my dad is a judge, the response is usually something like that.

Some fun facts about my dad:

1. He has, on multiple occasions, dressed up as a cop from the seventies (complete with a wig and a mustache made by a hairnet glued to his face) to create a comedic short film for our school fundraiser.
2. He also wrote and played all the music in that short film

The title, “Judge,” carries with it an element of authority and intimidation. So, it’s not surprising that people have a hard time believing that my musical, goofy dad is the same guy who sits on the bench in a courtroom

delivering sentences to people daily.

Similarly, when I read a verse like this,

O God of vengeance, shine forth!
2  Rise up, O judge of the earth;
repay to the proud what they deserve!

my response is usually a struggle to understand how judgement and mercy can both fit in the same God. Judge-God does not sound like merciful God. David’s transition from calling for judgement on the wicked in chapter 94 to his declarations of praise in response to God’s mercy in chapter 95 happens so quickly. And if I don’t read it too closely, it’s tempting for me to read “judgement” in verse 2 and think, “Okay, David’s being dramatic and asking God to smite his enemies again.” But I think these verses are saying something different. I think judgement and mercy are more closely related than I tend to assume. And I appreciate the clarity these psalms bring to that relationship.

O LORD, how long shall the wicked
   how long shall the wicked exult?
4  They pour out their arrogant words;
    all the evildoers boast.
5  They crush your people, O LORD
   and afflict your heritage.
6  They kill the widow and the sojourner,
    and murder the fatherless;

Maybe there are some echoes of vengeance in David’s cries, but I think his pleas are rooted in a heart broken by the injustice he sees around him. His broken-hearted cry for judgement and justice is a simultaneous cry for mercy on the widows, the orphans, the refugee, and the forgotten. And God, in his capacity to be a merciful judge, responds:

I find it healthy to put things in perspective for a little bit.

You live on a planet that is so perfectly positioned around our sun that it is literally called the Goldilocks zone by scientists because it is just the right distance away. We are  one random asteroid from dying. Some might say that an event like this is rare, but it has happened before, and the last time it happened, it was so huge it made our moon. Granted, if the first asteroid did not hit us at the exact time it did, we would not have a moon, and the axis of our earth would wobble, like Mars resulting in Ice Ages that would occur about every other year. If that one asteroid hit us any later, we would all be dead; if it hit us any weaker, we would not have a moon and would still be dead; if it hit us any earlier before we had the mass of a planet, we would be hit out of the Goldilocks zone, and probably sucked into the sun.

Barring intergalactic disasters, we can look at ourselves. If we breathe in too much oxygen, we die of oxygen poisoning; if we do not breathe in

enough, we die of suffocation. On the average, a human has to keep themselves in a temperature range of 4 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit), and 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). A temperature range that is pitiful, considering that even this planet has locations that do not provide for this kind of environment. Even though we are in the freaking Goldilocks Zone, there is a zone of human survival that’s even smaller within that.

Now let’s put this into Biblical perspective. We believe that God created the heavens and the earth. God made it so that you were positioned and born in such a planned and specific way so that we could love those around us and worship Him and make His creation beautiful. If he made it any colder or any hotter or positioned any of the asteroids to hit us with even the smallest miscalculation, we would all be dead. When God put us on here, we believe he did it so that His love could spread.

However, we needed free will in order for the love to be real, so He gave us that as well. The second He did, we messed up. The fact that God has not scrapped us yet is a miracle considering the creation he made out of love has been at war with itself ever since Eden happened. Any other god would have scrapped us, but our God didn’t. If ours was a God of anything other than love, we would all be smited. However, we are not smited. In fact, we are being kept alive every second that we do not get nuked by North Korea or struck by lightning.

This is not to say stuff like this might happen eventually, but it is to say that with us being big bags of guts and water, sensitive to literally everything, it is a surprise that any of us can make it past one year. It’s surprising that, given the thousands of cells we’ve had and thousands of new cells our body is making, that literally 99.999% don’t have cancer from birth. Every moment is a blessing, and no one understands that more than David who cheated on Bathsheba and killed her husband by putting him on the front line of battle in a world where the people who did stuff like that believed in complete damnation, especially since it was before Jesus died.

This is why in Psalm 92:1 David says “It is good to give thanks to the Lord,

¹⁵ When they call on me, I will answer;
    I will be with them in trouble.
    I will rescue and honor them.
¹⁶ I will reward them with a long life
    and give them my salvation.”

I love God. The thought popped pleasantly in my head as I slid a dimpled hash brown into its bag, silently tilting my head in tune with a Gungor song. I’d gotten up ten minutes early – at the generous time of 3:50 a.m. – so I could meditate and arrive at the not-yet-shined doorframe of McDonald’s perhaps with grog still hanging in my eye, but with a fresher heart. A billion suns rise for You…

All which dissipates at the commotion of a morning manager underhandedly snapping at an already over-stretched employee.

In these moments, I am not experiencing what the psalmist describes as God’s “wrath, smoldering like fire” (Ps 89.47). I am not exiled from my home, mourning the dream my ancestors once held. My suffering in these moments is comparatively very little. Yet, still it gives rise to this same fundamental question: “Where are you, God?”

Or, as the psalmist puts it, “Where are your promises of old, Lord?” (Ps

Psalm 87

The meaning of the Psalm is not clear at first pass, but as we dig in, this is one of the more beautiful Psalms. Verses 1 - 3 describe a future Zion as the chosen city of God. It is on the holy mountain, loved by God and spoken of gloriously. This is the same place Revelation 14:1 describes:

“Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”

The next three verses, 4 - 6, are where it gets good. All of the nations described in v4 are (or were) enemies of Israel throughout their history. The references “this one was born in there” in verses 4, 5, and 6 are saying this enemy nation is apart of Zion. These verses speak to the inclusion of these enemy nations in God’s holy city. The Lord has established Zion for this purpose and ‘registered’ these people as citizens. The Psalm is implicitly saying what the new testament says explicitly: God’s enemies

When I sat down to write about these Psalms, I couldn’t help but reflect on one of my favorite rap lyrics of last year. Chance the Rapper in his song “Blessings” reminds us: “When the praises go up, the blessings come down.” I think that the psalmist is thinking along these lines in Psalm 86:

“For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me.” (ESV, 5-7)

While the language here is wonderful and the sentiment seems straightforward, this is something that I struggle with. I get so caught up in the day-to-day life that I forget to regularly praise God for the things I’ve been blessed with; I focus so much on the negative things happening around me, that I often fail to recognize my blessings as they come down

Psalm 84

I have this thing that happens to me each time I read the Psalms, and it sometimes gets on my nerves. I was raised in a church-going family that always found a way to be involved with the worship team, no matter what church we were at. That being said, I have a lot of old outdated worship music flowing through my brain almost 24/7. It's terrific.

When I read Psalm 84, I get a flashbacks to a song called “Better is One Day,” which is one of those outdated worship songs. As outdated as the song is, the words in it come straight from Psalm 84, and couldn't be any more beautiful.

“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Psalm 84:10)

Oh man is this Psalm not applicable today more than ever, hahaha! The government has been a source of confusion and sadness for us lately so it's easy to denounce the current world order and want to tear it all down (at least, for me it is). We see in this Psalm that God not only instituted but also intends the worlds governments to partner with God to bring balance and life in the world. So the challenge this Psalm brings to me is, rather than giving up on the government, how do I stay engaged and seek justice in spite of our systems being overwhelming and broken?

“O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance;
They have defiled your holy temple,
They have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.” (Psalm 79: 1)

I’m reading this book – The Invention of Nature – about this guy – Alexander Von Humboldt – who was once described by his contemporaries as the second most famous man in the world after Napoleon. Charles Darwin called him “the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived.” Among a million other discoveries, Humboldt is the first guy to have postulated that the world was a single, interconnected, web-like, and ultimately fragile organism that could be altered by human action. In essence, he was the first to claim that the effects of the human species intervention on nature were already “incalculable” and could become catastrophic if they continued to disturb the world so “brutally.” This was in the 18 th century.

Now I’m going to ask you to do something. Please turn away from your screen and read psalm 78. It’s a doozy. In my Bible it’s three pages long – so sit with it for a sec.

Preface: It took me some time to wrestle with Asaph’s retelling of the history of the Jewish nation. I struggled with Asaph’s description of God as Wrathful, his anger ready to boil over onto His people at any moment. And I did not want to give an apology in this reflection. After sitting with the Psalm, I didn’t want to cheapen Asaph’s descriptions of God and His Justice by making the move that we all too often make – the move that says “Look to Christ and you see that Asaph’s God is not the True God, but rather an ignorant and angry brute conceived of by ignorant and angry people.” Of course, we know who God is in the person of Jesus Christ. We would do well to not forget that Christ flipped tables.

I’ll interpret Asaph’s story as Asaph interprets his people’s history. Psalm 78 begins:

“My people, hear my teaching;
Listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a parable.” (Psalm 78: 1-2).

Asaph is a storyteller, the history of his people a story. Asaph has seen war and famine, he has seen the slavery and freedom of his people, he has seen sin and blessing, he has seen the rise and fall of Ephraim, he has seen the oppressed become the oppressors, and he has seen in the nation of Judah and King David the low brought high. Not only has Asaph seen and heard these things – he knows God. He knows God is intimately woven into the story of the people of Israel. As a storyteller, he looks back on all that he has seen and heard and tries to interpret where God is in that story. He knows that where there is famine there is God, where there is destruction there is God. God may not be the cause of destruction and famine. But God cannot be cut out of the parts of the story that make us uncomfortable.

In the twenty-first century, where do we see God? Do we see Him in the

Reading Psalm 77 felt like I was reading the same words I have been writing to God for seven years now, so I thought it may be a neat experiment to go through my prayer journal and find words that matched these cries from Asaph. Blue words are things I have written to God in the past. Please keep in mind that, like the Psalms, these are raw emotions given to God. It’s not the truth of who God really is, simply the truth of the human condition. I think it’s important that we all feel less alone in that. 

1 I cry out to God; yes, I shout.  Oh, that God would listen to me!

I know this isn’t true, because it doesn’t quite add up with your teachings, but emotions are vicious liars, and mine are telling me that you stopped listening a long time ago. All of this crying out to you with no reply is making me feel rather foolish.

2 When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven,  but my soul was not comforted.

You are love. So why don’t I feel that? I’ve cried to you on so many nights, and I still feel completely shattered. I’m trying to hearten, to refocus and not attach meaning to everything, but I don’t feel any closer to you. I don’t want to give up on you, but I’m really confused as to why you wouldn’t want me to feel your love. I’m afraid my words do not rise like incense to you. I wish so much that my words could be fragrance to you.

3 I think of God, and I moan,  overwhelmed with longing for his help.

Whether I draw close to you or hide from you, it’s all the same. I hear, feel, see nothing of you in this haunting prayer. But I know you’ve been busy talking with everyone else. Leave it to me to compare even the most private of relationships, the one between a person and God. But walk with me a bit here and show me that you haven’t been ignoring this prayer for 7 years. I know nothing of you anymore.

 4 You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray!

I don’t know what to say to you anymore. Perhaps one day it will all become clear, but for now you’ve kept that clarity from me, so that my entire life is a feeling of waking up from a nap--each morning the emotion that exhausted me to sleep is felt tenfold.

5 I think of the good old days, long since ended, when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now.

What happened to us? We used to be so alive and

compassionate. We used to write-- man, we used to write-- and we used to read and sing and laugh and cry. I miss the inside jokes and the little daydreams and the way you would breathe in every word. I don’t know how many ways I can say that I miss you.

7 Has the Lord rejected me forever?  Will he never again be kind to me?

Sometimes when the pen doesn’t work I see it as a sign. Not a sign that the ink has run low or isn’t quite marrying with the paper right, but a spiritual sign that you don’t want to hear me. And here’s the thing: it’s way easier to accept that you don’t care than to have faith that you do and receive zero evidence that you do. It’s disheartening. A loneliness from you is a heartbreak I can’t bare.

8 Is his unfailing love gone forever?  Have his promises permanently failed?

My heart wants to learn and grow already so you can say “well done” and hold me, but I guess the immature in spirit don’t receive that type of affection from you. We’re too busy growing, trying to build boats, wondering if anyone will ever love us, trying to please you through our confusion and bitterness.

9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion?

Pease, Father. What have I done to create such a distance? And why do I see no signs of repair? It’s as if my seven years of waiting has not even aroused any kind of grace in you.

10 And I said, “This is my fate; the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

PSALM 74 AND 75

I read an article this week about scientists discovering a new black hole the size of 17 billion suns. For perspective, 1.3 million earths fit inside of the sun. I tried to multiply 1.3 million by 17 billion and this is the number that came out: 2.21e+16.

I don’t even know what that means, and I simply can’t fathom the magnitude of that black hole. And there’s this idea that God not only created everything that is, but that God also sustains everything that is. What does that say about God? This week’s Psalms came at a perfect time for me, as I was spending time pondering the breadth of God.

I want to highlight one passage today.

Psalm 74

12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13 You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. 14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. 15 You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. 16 Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. 17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.

What beautiful, epic poetry. Take the time this morning to reflect on this scripture, breathe it in and let yourself sit in it.

Our God is old, timeless.

God works salvation (redemption, restoration, renewal) in the midst of the earth, in the middle of all the mess we’ve made.

God divided the sea and the earth and made it traversable for us. So that we wouldn’t be separated, but that we would know each other.

God has the final victory over the Leviathan*.

God unleashes and recedes springs and brooks, in God’s own timing.

God has authority, responsibility, and investment over every season of our life. Good or bad. Day or night.

God has set the boundaries for the earth and everything in it. For the renewing of all things, and the glory of God.

Our God is great. Great enough to hold the fabric of the cosmos together, and great enough to love us dearly and individually.

*The Leviathan is mentioned several times in the OT. It’s thought to be either a name for a mythological sea creature or large sea creatures that do exist (for example crocodiles or whales), or some mix in-between.

My impression of Solomon at some point during his praises, probably.

Psalms 72 and 73 tell of a situation we often find ourselves in, especially when we are trying to find that foothold onto higher ground. For Solomon, higher ground was his vision of heaven on the earth.
The entirety of the first Psalm is his exuberant proclamation of God in all glory, raised high, crowned with justice; the One who brings prosperity to the righteous with one hand and shields the poor and powerless in the other. Solomon cries out for God’s blessing over king and country, and he holds nothing back as he calls for all nations to fall in awe before God. It is almost like we find Sol rebelling against what the world itself has claimed to be, defiantly roaring “God has shown me greater!”

“May all the godly flourish during his reign.
May there be abundant prosperity until the moon is no more.”
Psalm 72:7

It is this vibrant pulse, beating strong, that flows through many of the

Psalms. These declarations of godly justice, fortune and praise paint Sol as a pretty faithful man, having put all this noise out for all to hear. We see hope in these words. However, we read on and find that not everyone is one the same page.

“Did I keep my heart pure for nothing?
Did I keep myself innocent for no reason?”
Psalm 73:13

Asaph remarks how true God is to the faithful, yet finds himself so very close to losing his hold. He goes on to lament how the wicked revel in their wealth, casting faith aside to follow the waves of their own making. The people mumble and question: where is God in all of this? How do the faithful find themselves wrung out and left to dry while evil can flourish so effortlessly? How does good compare to the vainglorious? And here’s the hard part: I was Asaph.

Raised in faith, church all week, camps and missional retreats, Vigilias, etc., there was no end to the effort on my end and of my community to try and reach higher ground. Growing up, it only seemed to make sense that the faithful would one day be rewarded, so I pressed on. Time passed, and I saw those unlike me in many ways, living great lives apart from faith. I looked at my lot and saw that I had less. Why try for blessing if what I strived for with broken hands slipped out into unblemished

Psalm 70

To cope with the fact that I was hiking around outside at Cumberland island, I pointed at the local monuments.

“May God be gracious to us and bless us

  And make his face shine upon us –

 So that your ways may be known on Earth,

   Your salvation among all nations” (Psalm 67: 1-2)    

The picture I’ve chosen to share is a sort of testimony: “Come and hear all you who fear God / let me tell you what He has done for me” (66: 16).  

Easter 98’

 This picture reminds me that God has pursued and Loved me like a Good Father since my youth.  God our Mother has cared for me, sheltered me, cried with me, and continues to gently raise me.  The grace in my life has never been earned and has always been freely given.    

I was born to parents that taught me the value of Love, to grandparents that mention me in their prayers every night, to privilege and abundance, to forgiveness, and ultimately to blessing.  As I type this my skin stands in recognition of these simple and profound facts of Grace, Mercy, and Belovedness.     

   Indeed, I have been given much.  We as a community have been given much.  Our blessing, when reflected upon, should cause us to turn inward.  Where is the abundance we have been shown in the tears of the homeless, in the persecution of the Other, in thirst and hunger, in loneliness and alienation, in greed and in violence?  The reflection in Psalm 67 “The land yields its harvest / God, our God, blesses us” can seem callous when juxtaposed with the barren wastelands that border the fruit of our lives.  

Consider the banal cliché “To those whom much is given, much is expected.”  Psalm 66 is a testimony of God’s blessing after a great victory in battle.  In this testimonial, the psalmist  responds to God’s blessing by vowing to give God his best:

   “I will come to your temple with burnt offerings

   

At 27, I’m gonna crack--the type of losing it that looks a lot like a sad episode of 90210. I’m going to do all of the things that my anxiety and emotionally cluttered mind would never allow me to do in my early 20s. I’m going to do something illegal or blow all my savings on a sailboat or go kiss boys or whatever. Because I can feel it. The ache. The pain that doesn’t let go. And four years from now, I will have exhausted all of my attempts to be mature and faithful and joyful about it.

Me at 14 in a park after it closed. Using it as a foreshadowing of my rebel days that will be at 27. Also, my brother is just too dang cute <3

Everyone’s been sharing their Myers Briggs and Enneagrams in these posts lately, so here’s mine: INFP/4. This means that I feel all of the things all of the time. My friends have to process my emotions with me and carry quite a bit of my burdens. And just when things are getting too real, I joke “just wait ‘til I’m 27” and an uneasy laugh will make its way into the conversation. It’s a laugh, because the thought of me doing any of the above things is rather funny, but it’s uneasy, because the truth in the joke is that we all wonder how much longer we’re going to be able to continue this journey as healthy adults. At some point, we’re going to turn 27. Maybe some of us already have.

Reading through these Psalms, I think David understands the fragility of our hearts.

The human heart and mind are deep and complex.  
Psalm 64:6

Part of the pain of praying for me has been wondering if God actually feels, takes, and honors the suffering we all face from the human condition. And even though in my head I know He does, my deep and complex heart tells another story, a much louder story. And so it’s hard for me to talk to God, and even these days write to Him, because it’s too heartbreaking, too difficult, too much.

We all have different reasons for hesitating to pray, but if you’re with me and sometimes praying is just too painful, I encourage you to start by saying nothing. Sit in a place you feel comfortable, close your eyes, and feel. Feel all of the things. Scary, I know, but God wants them.

Some of us may think our feelings or feel our feelings. I’d like to think that God hears them.

Don’t let a lack of words keep you from prayer. God hears your silence.

Psalm 62

5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. 7 On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

The central theme of Psalm 62 is waiting on the Lord. I’ve heard this phrase my entire life, and to be honest up until recently I’ve had no idea what it means. When I think about waiting on the Lord I imagine just sitting around depressed, hoping that God will show up like a knight in shining armor and deliver me from whatever I’m struggling with. I’m a 1 on the Enneagram and a “DO” on the crap model, so sitting around waiting to be rescued feels like hell to me. But I think that we’ve

misunderstood what waiting looks like in our lives.

An accurate depiction of me waiting. Please excuse every bit of my 2007 fashion sensibility.

The directors are currently reading a book called Red Moon Rising, and in one section of the book the author explains “The Cycle Of Blessing." Here’s the idea; we are always in one of four stages in our relationship with God.

1. Numb
2. Wrestling
3. Waiting
4. Blessing*

So when we start the cycle we feel lonely, lost, maybe even nothing at all. Then slowly our heart starts to become agitated. We’re uncomfortable, upset, irritated, maybe even sad, but we can’t figure out why. We’re wrestling with ourselves trying to put language to what ails us. Then over time we receive clarity, we’re able to express what’s going on inside of us, and we move on to the next phase, waiting. Check out this quote from the author.

“You no longer wrestle with yourself, but like Jacob, with God. This is the time of waiting and watching-"

**The idea behind godly waiting is not passive waiting, but rather active waiting.

Psalm 62

WARNING:

The following text has been written by a natural FEELER, NOT a natural THINKER.

Psalm 60

The beginning of this Psalm speaks to a feeling of abandonment that I believe many of us have struggled with in times when we feel defeated by the “enemy” or by our circumstances. Yet, then it reminds us that the Lord is our refuge still.

“4 You have set up a banner for those who fear you, that they may flee to it from the bow. 5 That your beloved ones may be delivered.”

Psalm 58/59

David is lamenting about the evils of the world and that which opposes his kingdom. His frustration is written poetically and violently in the following verses.

“The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear, so that it does not hear the voice of charmers or of the cunning enchanter.” (Psalm 58:3-5)

Sometimes something will get me so worked up inside that I cannot help but to go on a fiery rant about how terrible that thing is. I assume you understand what I am talking about. Simply think of the thing that “triggers” you and read along with verse 3 through 5.

Psalm 56

9 "My enemies will turn back when I call out to you for help. Then I will know that God is on my side"

performed presumably in a worship setting, so it has to be a little prettier than “God look at me and save me if you see fit … Thank you! Please hurry.” When the Psalm gets boiled down to that, the basic thought process, it sounds a lot like something I want to pray all the time. The fact that this is basically David's prayers makes me feel like it's a heck of a lot more acceptable. David flowered it up for a song, but it's a pretty raw prayer. Hopefully this helps those of y'all struggling with prayer for whatever the reason.

Quickly on Psalm 55.

A little background on Psalm 52 and 53:

These are responses to one of the darkest moments in Israel’s history. David is on the run from King Saul, fleeing for his life. The King finds out about a group of priests that has aided in David’s escape. Saul responds severely.

1 Samuel 22

18 Then the King said to Doeg, “You turn and strike the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod. 19 And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword. 20 But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and

fled after David. 21 And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord. 22 And David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father's house. 23 Stay with me; do not be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. With me you shall be in safekeeping.”

I bring all this up so that our Psalm reading this week can be read in context. David is in a rough place. He blames himself for all of these deaths and his anger toward Saul and the empire is overflowing. David spends both of these Psalms speaking and prophesying against the system and his enemies.

Psalm 52

1 Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. 2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. 3 You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. 4 You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.

Psalm 53

1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.

*** Clearly in this text David isn’t referring to your “friendly neighborhood Atheist”, but to a person like Saul who would murder man, woman, and child for his own gain.

In the midst of all his anger and frustration, David has this beautiful line.

Psalm 52

"God, create a pure heart in me. Give me a new spirit that is faithful to you."

So easy to fall back

I lose my grip oh so fast

But even through the trials

Your love it always last

Keep my feet on the path

Keep my feet on the path

 

Hold me close

Don't ever let me go

I am yours

You Have All My Life

 

I need your spirit

I can't make it on my own

I am yours

Psalm 49

I see this verse as a shoutout to all of us who think we are hot stuff.

It calls on those who have attained glory, riches, and other worldly possessions, and then it puts things into perspective. No matter how great you are, all life ends in the same place; the grave.

“Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.” (49:16-17) 

“Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice

I so wish I could hear what these Psalms sounded like whenever they were sung. Could have been cool.

Anyway, let's get started!

I love the overarching narrative found in Psalm 46. We find the writers declaring that even if the world is falling apart around us, God will still be present and move it all together. Verses 8 and 9, to me, display a God that can disrupt everything the world is doing to end wars and bring peace. Psalm 46 simply displays a confidence in God being honored even through all the strife that the world is engulfed in and I find that immensely empowering.

(Another quick rabbit hole: these first few verses immediately remind me of that one Chris Tomlin song Awesome is the Lord Most High. Don't know how I feel about that, but I thought it was critical to mention.)

Psalm 47 kinda stirs some funny emotions for me (the whole God bringing nations under another nation's control sparks stuff). I want to remind everybody that these Psalms were written at a specific time for a