Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘praying the psalms’

Faithfulness Springs Forth

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We are living within patterns and cycles. Nature teaches about the seasons; each year the same and yet each year different, affected by a combination of forces, some human-made, some divine.

harvestLove and faithfulness meet together;
    righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
    and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
    and our land will yield its harvest. [Psalm 85:10-12, NIV]

Here’s how I imagine this verse playing out: love and faithfulness are the human response. Out of the meeting of love (unconditional love, that is), faithfulness springs forth. What is faithfulness but trust and dependability and truth. Love is the ground from which these are born. Righteousness is the yardstick that emanates from God. It is only in God that righteousness and peace can dwell and prosper together. But here is the promise in this verse: as our love and faithfulness grow here in this three-dimensional world, God sees and we are blessed.

But what then is the harvest that God is blessing? I remember an old friend was adamant that a believer “bearing fruit” meant bringing more and more people to the Christ. I always felt like he was notching his spiritual guns. But today, I find myself leaning to a different understanding.

The harvest is the result of seeds planted, tended, and reproducing themselves. Wheat makes more wheat. Apple seeds make more apples. I am not a single seed but many. All humans are a composite. We see some of our reproduction capabilities in our families. If we are bitter, we bear more bitterness. If we are selfish, we teach the same (most often by example). But, if I love, then love is born in others. If I am faithful, a synergy is created like an unstoppable wave. Love and faithfulness are the strongest and most powerful forces and yet, the least appreciated. Instead, we have cheapened love to mean sex and heaped faithfulness with a list of exit clauses and “what ifs.”

These are the ones to practice and nurture: love and faithfulness and then righteousness and peace will pour down like rain.

Read Full Post »

Listening to God

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

listeningWhat does it mean to listen to God?

I will listen to what God the Lord says;
    he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants [saints]—
    but let them not [re]turn to folly. [Psalm 85:8, NIV, 2010 with words inserted from 1984 version]

When I was in acting school, we used to have a teacher who tried to teach us how to center down into ourselves, to experience “constructive rest,” to align our bodies, to know “neutral” in ourselves. Much of that time was spent on the floor and breathing. At the time, I was simply too immature to appreciate what she was trying to accomplish. One of her exercises required us to listen: to listen to the sounds outside the room, then inside the room, and then inside our bodies. In a way, this is technique that can also be used to settle the mind down in preparation to listen to God. It’s pretty hard to listen to God while being busy doing other things. [Unless anyone has cultivated the habits of Brother Lawrence, and his Practice of the Presence of God.]

But I believe, more than anything else, that the heart must be prepared to hear before listening will occur. It is up to me to establish that environment, like preparing garden soil to be sown. I can help this preparation of the heart along by reading or singing or breathing.

In this process, I should also know the subject matter. In other words, I believe the most productive listening is done when focused on a situation or topic or question. (And I don’t mean a yes or no question, but a more open-ended one, that allows room for God to expand the answer.) But here is the vital key: I must be at my wit’s end, so to speak. If I really want my heart to be open to the voice of God, then I must know that my resources have been expended, my “way” has not worked, my solutions have been exhausted.

surrenderOtherwise, I think my very human tendency, once I “hear” God’s response, is to compare it to all the other answers out there. It’s not the way God works. If I am truly coming to the God of the Universe for help and illumination, then I can’t treat the answer as though God is simply weighing in on the possibilities like another girlfriend at a kaffeeklatsch.

Do not, then, go to God lightly. For in the breadth of this one verse, Psalm 85:8, there is a warning about returning to our folly (our own way). To ask God, the Holy Spirit, to help and then to choose another way, is, indeed foolishness.

In the older 1984 NIV version, the translation reads that God promises peace to his saints. In later years, this term has been replaced with culture friendly phrases like “faithful servants” or “the holy people He loves.” We are adverse to calling ourselves saints and yet I know it’s not a word to be taken lightly, it is the one that speaks of total surrender to the Christ. A saint is totally sold out to God. A saint hears God and listens and then acts upon the information.

Clearly, the opposite of a saint is a fool.

Read Full Post »

Hosanna!

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , on September 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Oh foolish we who don’t believe we need salvation.

heal the worldRestore us again, God our Savior,
    and put away your displeasure toward us. . . .
Show us your unfailing love, Lord,
    and grant us your salvation. [Psalm 85: 4, 7; NIV]

It’s gotten corrupted, this idea of being “saved.” I suppose we can blame all the good-hearted Christians who claimed the “born again” phrase and the Bible thumping preacher whose gaze pierced the crowd and said, “you must be saved!” And we’re all looking around and saying, “saved from what?” The whole saved got totally personalized. And although it’s true, we all do need personal salvation (or in my view, better described as surrender), it is global salvation we should think about now.

Our world is in deep danger.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization one in eight people in our world is starving to death. Most of these people live in developing countries. Of the 10.9 million children deaths, almost half are due to malnourishment and hunger. In 2005, the World Bank estimated that almost 1,400 Million people live on $1.25 or less per day. According to a 2002 World Health report, 1.6 Million people lose their lives to violence. Just in America alone, over 30,000 people commit suicide every year [Suicide Facts]. And the number one cause for suicide is “untreated depression.” In 2004, NIMH estimated that 26% of all Americans, 18 and over, could be diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder in a given year.

Naturally, none of these statistics is hard and fast or specifically represents where we are today, but regardless, the numbers are staggering.

Humanity is in need of saving. We are dying. We are killing ourselves. And who knows when the next “real” weapon of mass destruction is loosed upon humans. We are killing each other.

Personal recovery is important. I know that very well. I lay out my state of soul to God each day, asking forgiveness and renewal. But I find my God asking me to reach out for the greater good. The psalms are teaching me about praying corporately, with a wide net.

“Show us your unfailing love, oh Lord . . . “

Read Full Post »

Do I Trust You?

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , on September 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

trust2It’s the ultimate question, really. Do I trust God or not? It is a question who’s answer is black or white, yes or no. Any answer close to “maybe” is a no. It is the essence of faith; they work in tandem, they need each other.

Lord Almighty,
    blessed is the one who trusts in you. [Psalm 84:12, NIV 2011]

It is trust that operates outside of the tangible world. Trust is the foundation upon which I can continue forward in the face of trouble, in the face of terror, in the face of sickness or collapse.

Trust and faith are spirit words. They are not driven by circumstances or the weather. When I live in the realm of trust and faith, I am living in the Maker’s world.

Read Full Post »

One Day Better Than Another

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , on September 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I suppose it’s been foolish of me to imagine that there aren’t degrees within the broad umbrella of service to God. I enjoyed the openness of acceptance, the equality I found in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” And so I had imagined there was an across the board sameness to us in the eyes of Spirit. But then, I was reminded by my own pastor that there are promises of “crowns” in heaven for some and not for others. Initially, this message made me uncomfortable. I have spent so many years trying to let go of a performance-oriented faith, a weighing in of the value of my response to grace.

Reality check: Some people deserve recognition for their faithfulness. They may be choosing more wisely how to use their time and energies than me.

Just one day in the courts of Your temple is greaterMotherteresa and child
    than a thousand anywhere else.
I would rather serve as a porter at my God’s doorstep
    than live in luxury in the house of the wicked.
For the Eternal God is a sun and a shield.
    The Eternal grants favor and glory;
He doesn’t deny any good thing
    to those who live with integrity. [Psalm 84:10-11, The Voice]

The point is the paradox that the choice is not the “Martha” one of scurrying about and being busy for Jesus. It’s sitting at the feet of the Christ, it’s holding the door, it’s being present and ready when a need comes up and then simply saying, “yes.”

As Pastor Jess taught, if we have accepted the presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit in our lives, then we are “saved,” meaning we are bound to the Spirit and our own spirits will live forever in heaven, in perpetual unity with the Holy Spirit. But the sweetness of that union depends on my devotion, my surrender, my confession, my poured out life.

Read Full Post »

A Living God

Posted in Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , on September 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

living god“How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.” [Psalm 84:1-2; NIV, 1984]

Two things stand out in these verses: God’s dwelling place and God being alive.

The entire idea of a dwelling place must be integrated into our consciousness. Where is the dwelling place? Perhaps in ancient times when the Temple was a designated place for God’s Presence there in Jerusalem, but that is no longer the case. Jesus and his subsequent disciples and teachers have made it clear that the kingdom is within us, the very Presence of the Holy Spirit provides a dwelling for God. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” [I Corinthians 3:16]

Where God is, it is lovely. Where God walks, it’s a garden. Where God is sovereign, there is peace. My longing is to dwell within the protective peace of God’s Holy Spirit. To live with abandon, in Christ. This is the greatest paradigm shift of all. We are not alone in this search. People are seeking the same thing but by different routes. I don’t know those outcomes but I do know the promise I have in the Christ: “Nor will people say, Look! Here [it is]! or, See, [it is] there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts] and among you [surrounding you].” [Luke 17:21; Amplified]

And so I will dwell with a living God and because God is alive, God is transformative and seasonal and dynamic. God is not static. God is a river, an ocean, a Milky Way. God is a sun, a fire, a volcano. God is wind and cloud and dew. God is breath.

Read Full Post »

Is God Disappointed?

Posted in Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I know the answer to this question because I know we anthropomorphize God.

I can’t help but wonder why You care about mortals—
    sons and daughters of men—
    specks of dust floating about the cosmos.

But You placed the son of man just beneath God
    and honored him like royalty, crowning him with glory and honor.
You ordained him to govern the works of Your hands,
    to nurture the offspring of Your divine imagination; [Psalm 8:4-6a, The Voice]

paradoxWe’re fortunate, really, that God is not much like people but we’re unlucky that human is not nearly like God as God would have hoped or planned. If God were more like us, then I’m sure God would be disappointed.

After all, God gives humans everything they need to make the best of a life: the ability to reason, the ability to create, the ability to love and care and help others. We are given the opportunity to partner with the greatest power in the Universe, the Holy Spirit, and we are asked to participate in the making of heaven on earth.

Instead, we who received the most have deceived the most.

The story of us is reflected in the first story of Adam & Eve. How could they do it? Why did they choose badly? Why do we? In essence, this is our story, day after day after day.

Until we figure out the reality of living within the paradox, we will not get it. I say this, at the very least, for myself. I understand intellectually what it means to love the unlovable, to give out of little instead of plenty, to turn the other cheek, to embrace enemies, to trust God is avenge pain, to sacrifice now for another life, to live outside of my perceived wants and needs, to take up the cross of Christ. I can say all the right words. I can teach the concepts. I know in my head, but I still, like Paul, “I can will myself to do something good, but that does not help me carry it out. I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it; instead, I end up living out the evil that I decided not to do.” [Romans 7:18b – 19, The Voice]

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »