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Posts Tagged ‘psalm 85’

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.

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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.

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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 . . . “

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