Among the Downtrodden

Psalm 147:10-11 singles out two examples of strength that might have impressed people in the era in which these words were penned:

His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner; but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.

✙ Ps. 147:10-11 ✙

Of course champion track stars and thoroughbred horses still inspire. Actually, beyond inspiration, horse racing and athletics are obsessions of

Thanksgiving Has a Context

Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.
The Lord lifts up the downtrodden; he casts the wicked to the ground.
Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre.

✙ Ps. 147:1-7 ✙

What wondrous news this is. The One who created the stars and knows their names reserves particular love for the outcast, the brokenhearted, the wounded, the downtrodden. I believe it is necessary to daily give God thanks. But in Psalm 147 my thanksgiving has a context. If I can only thank God for blessings that are peculiar to me, my family, my friends, or members of my own church, then I'm doing it wrong. If my

Against My Religion

What is against my religion? Here's a brief list of religious prohibitions that I have encountered in different people from time to time throughout my life:

• Drinking alcohol 
• Wearing make-up 
• Wearing jewelry 
• Exposing too much skin 
• Drinking coffee
• Trick-or-Treating

That Great Liberator

Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.

✙ Ps. 146:3 ✙

Through some kind of weakness, the human soul, whenever it is in tribulation here, despairs of God, and chooses to rely on another human being. Let it be said a person in some affliction, "There is a great man who can set you free," and he rejoices, he is lifted up. But if it is said to him, "God frees you", he is chilled, so to speak, by

Valediction

I was happy serving the Congregational Church of La Jolla for nearly 12 years, but when my father died in 2013 and then my mother became seriously ill in 2016, I realized that it was far too difficult for me to get to Kentucky from California in an emergency. And so I had thought about possibly thinking about moving east, but I doubt I’d have done much to make that happen. So apparently God did. When I returned home from visiting my mother in August 2016, I found a letter in my mailbox from a realtor. I was used to getting those—usually at least one a week—but this one was different. It was for owners of a particular type of unit in my particular homeowner’s association. And the realtor named her client to

A God So Nigh

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

✙ Ps. 145:18 ✙

The nearness or remoteness of a friend is very material and considerable in our troubles, distresses, wants, dangers etc. I have such a friend and he would help me, but he lives so far off; and I have another friend that has a great love for me, that is able to counsel me, and to speak a word in season to me, and that in my distress would stand close to me, but he is so remote. I have a special

Thy Power, O Christ

Let thy power, O Christ, 
be in us all, 
to share the world's suffering 
and redress its wrongs. Amen. 

—John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer

True Praise of the Creator

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you.

✙ Ps. 145:10 ✙

I find it curious that there are Christians who deny the reality of evolutionary biology. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 serves us well if we view it as it was intended—that is, as metaphor. It describes something that evolved over days. And just as I might say, "In their day there was no electricity," so a day in the creation story cannot be defined as 24 hours. In today's terms, it was an age or an epoch.

The point of the beautiful poetry of the Judeo-Christian account of

Perfect Stranger

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

✙ Ps. 145:8-9 ✙

When Moses went up the mountain with two tablets of stone to receive the ten commandments and God passed before him, Moses heard God's self-revelation: יהוה ,יהוה, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness... [Exod. 34:6]. These words to describe God were repeated no less than five more times in the Hebrew Bible, including here by David in Psalm 145. If we read a bit further in God's self-revelation to Moses, we see that these words were spoken in

A Believing Heart

Give me, Lord, a stout heart to bear my own burdens, a tender heart to bear the burdens of others, and a believing heart to lay all my burdens on you, for you care for us. Amen.

—Lesslie Newbiggen

Unsearchable

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.

✙ Ps. 145:3-4 ✙

Last week I meditated on the 139th Psalm which begins, O Lord, you have searched me and known me. It should surprise no one, then, that human beings are a searchable lot—especially where God is

Sons and Daughters

Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
my rock and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues the peoples under me.
O Lord, what are human beings that you regard them, or mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath; their days are like a passing shadow.

✙ Ps. 144:1-4 ✙

Psalm 144 opens in a warlike fashion, but but by the third verse it

At the Gates of Scripture

Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust. 
Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. 

Save me, O Lord, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge.  

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me on a level path. 

✙ Ps. 143:8-10 ✙

To practice morning devotions is like hearing the gospel anew each day. But I have to listen:

Like a Parched Land

I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

✙ Ps. 143:5-6 ✙

I know I quote Calvin too much, but I just can't get over how brilliant he is sometimes. For example, when he comments on Psalm 143:6, he says that the psalmist "dismisses all other hopes from his mind, and makes a chariot to himself of the extreme necessity of his case, in which he ascends upwards to God."

What an incredible way to look at troubles: they are the vehicle God has sent me to transport me to the place I need to be. And like cracked

'The Joy of the Lord Is Your Strength'

God your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

—Nehemiah 8:10

It’s an odd thing living for years in a place where your language and your customs and your religion are different from the majority. There’s always the temptation to be like everybody else. It often means learning a new language in order to live your everyday life. There’s even the chance your children will consider that new language their mother tongue, and their parents’ language to be foreign.

This was Israel in the sixth century before the birth of Christ. They’d lost a war and got carted off to exile in Babylon… that is, until about seventy years later when Babylon in turn lost a war to Persia. It was then that the Persians allowed Israel to return to their homeland with Nehemiah as their governor and Ezra as their religious leader.

A Virtuous Cycle

Bring me out of prison, so that I may give thanks to your Name. The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me.

✙ Ps. 142:7 ✙

This psalm is supposedly one of David's. And here we find David hiding from Saul and his minions—probably in a cave. David's prayer is clearly heartfelt, and the faith it demonstrates is to be emulated. Had David prayed half as much in his palace as he did in the cave, his later life might not have been plagued by the sin he had to so earnestly repent of.

Though dejected and in a pitiful state, David has faith in Psalm 142 that God's power has not been diminished, nor has God's promise failed. But I

The Doorkeeper

Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.
Do not turn my heart to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with those who work iniquity; do not let me eat of their delicacies.
Let the righteous strike me; let the faithful correct me. Never let the oil of the wicked anoint my head, for my prayer is continually against their wicked deeds.
When they are given over to those who shall condemn them, then they shall learn that my words were pleasant.
Like a rock that one breaks apart and shatters on the land, so shall

Something Beyond

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.

✙ Ps. 141:2 ✙

I need to take note of what Psalm 141:2 is saying. Outward actions and the trappings of religion are important to many. And it's not my intention to condemn them. But there are several places in scriptures that make it clear that the outer trappings are mere symbols of inner devotion. As such, they are unnecessary if the heart is right. And one of those places is right here. Incense for some is a spiritual aid. To others it's a distraction. But this verse reminds me that whether or not

In Your Presence

I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor.
Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your Name; the upright shall live in your presence.

✙ Ps. 140:12-13 ✙

Psalm 140 ends with the same theme that I read throughout much of Psalm 139, and that is God's presence. Whereas Psalm 139 is more of an affirmation of God's abiding presence, Psalm 140 speaks of it more as a promise.

And this is a wonderful promise in the context of this psalm that seems

The Terror of the Good

Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers; protect me from those who are violent, who plan evil things in their minds and stir up wars continually.
They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s, and under their lips is the venom of vipers. Selah
Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from the violent who have planned my downfall.
The arrogant have hidden a trap for me, and with cords they have spread a net, along the road they have set snares for me. 

I say to the Lord, “You are my God; give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my supplications.”
O Lord, my Lord, my strong deliverer, you have covered my head in

Standards of Conduct

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

✙ Ps. 139:21-24 ✙

As beautifully harmonic as Psalm 139 is, it comes close to ending on a dissonant chord. There's too much hatred in verses 21-22, and it's hard to allow for it. I'm not supposed to hate. I try to avoid it. And if I take it to God, it's to ask for forgiveness—not to present it to God as a gift, like a cat dropping a dead mouse at its master's feet. I looked at the original Hebrew, hoping for another interpretation of an ambiguous verb. And maybe it helps a little to know that שָׂנֵא could mean either hate or abhor. To have an abhorrence for something seems more visceral, less voluntary. It

God Wrote My Biography

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

✙ Ps. 139:16 ✙

I love to read, and there's nothing more wonderful than savoring the words and phrases of a great writer. They can make a tragic story into something beautiful and the mundane into something fascinating. And so why should I be upset that before the universe was created, God wrote my biography? How can I complain that I am the protagonist in such a beautiful plot? Being upset about my current plight would be like lifting a single paragraph out of Great Expectations and saying Charles Dickens is a

On Being Called

When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

—Luke 5:11

What do you spend your time doing? What is your job? What is your passion? Are they the same thing? Do you consider what you spend your time on to be your calling?

When I was younger and struggling with whether or not I was called to be a minister, my main problems were named Isaiah and Paul. Remember Paul being struck blind on the road to Damascus, and out of that incident came his call to follow Jesus and represent him among the Gentiles? And of course we just heard about Isaiah’s call—his vision of the angels hovering around the throne of God, and the vivid visual description we get of how he realized his own forgiveness.

To me, those two stories described what a “call” was all about. So, naturally, I assumed I’d never been called… and probably never would be—despite the fact that I

A Sunday Prayer

Eternal God, though we cannot see you with our eyes
or touch you with our hands,
grant us this day
a clear conviction of your reality and your power in our lives.
Let us not enter this new week
believing only in the world
as we are told to experience it—
a world of statistics, of dollars and cents,
of political expediencies and shallow entertainment.
But give us grace to understand
that we are called to a new reality—
greater and deeper and more loving—

He Descended to the Dead

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

✙ Ps. 139:8 ✙

Sheol was generally thought of as a place of complete separation from God. And yet Psalm 139:8 states that if a spirit would wish to flee from God, it cannot do so in Sheol. Perhaps this is the Old Testament equivalent to what we read in 1 Peter 3—

He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey [1 Peter 3:18b-20a]

This, of course, is something that is found in the Apostles' Creed and which millions upon millions of people recite regularly. Unless, of course, they're Methodist.*

Practical Atheism

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

✙ Ps. 139:1-6 ✙

Psalm 139 is as profoundly beautiful as the scriptures can get. Spurgeon said that "the brightness of this psalm is like unto a sapphire stone, or Ezekiel's crystal—it flames out with such flashes of light as to turn night into day. Like a lighthouse, this holy song casts a clear light even to the uttermost parts of the sea, and warns against that practical atheism which ignores the presence of God, and so makes shipwreck of the

If God Is For Us

Psalm 138 began with a commitment to acknowledge the Lord as God, even in the face of other gods with more immediate appeal. And it closes with an affirmation of God's sovereignty. This sounds like a remote theological concept, but when things aren't going as I planned—even when everything is messed up—it is deeply reassuring to know that God's will will not be thwarted, that

the Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

✙ Ps. 138:8 ✙

If I need further biblical proof of this, then all I need to do is turn to Romans 8. The

My Culture's gods

I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise.

✙ Ps. 138:1 ✙

Psalm 138 opens in a very straightforward manner. To offer my whole heart to the One God is to sing God's praises in the presence of all gods that are no gods. Of course this psalm couldn't possibly pertain to me.

Except, it does. At least the ancients knew what they were doing when they bowed down to images of Baal and Isis and Marduk. My culture's gods, though no less visible, are much more surreptitious. When I hand my life over to the power of money or technology or political ideology, I am doing the opposite of what the psalmist does in

A Future with Hope

By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

✙ Ps. 137:1-6 ✙

How can a single psalm be one of the loveliest while also being the ugliest one in the entire psalter? Somehow Psalm 137 manages just that.

The first six verses have gone down in history as the most beautiful words of longing ever expressed by exiles for their homeland. They have been used by refugees and

List-Starter

It is he who remembered us in our low estate, for his steadfast love endures forever;
and rescued us from our foes, for his steadfast love endures forever;
who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever.
O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.

✙ Ps. 136:23-26 ✙

The circumstances for gratitude toward God whose steadfast love endures forever are summed up in the last four verses of Psalm 136. And those circumstances have a specific range—namely, from the lowest of the low (v. 23) to the highest heaven (v. 26). They also include deliverance (v. 24) and providence (v. 25). In other words, there probably is never a time when I cannot remind myself or my neighbor that God is Love, and that God

Goodbye to Love

On this day in 1983, Karen Carpenter died of complications from anorexia nervosa. She was 32.

The Constant Refrain

O give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.
O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever;
who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever;
who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever;
who spread out the earth on the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever;
who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever;
the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever;
the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever;

Can't Help Falling in Love

This song peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 100 on this date in 1962. Sorry, Elvis, but I like this version much better.

'Bear' Necessity

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

—1 Cor. 13:7

I belong to that generation of people who, as young children, first encountered the phrase The Bare Necessities in a song from the movie The Jungle Book. Unfortunately, the song was sung by a bear. And so people around my age think of bare necessities not so much as the least a person needs to get by, but as the things a bear might need to find contentment in a music-filled life in the forest. The difference, of course, is in the spelling of the word bare.

Another meaning for the bear that’s spelled b-e-a-r is found in 1 Corinthians 13, where the Apostle Paul tells us that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures

Vain Repetitions

"

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

✙ Ps. 136:1 ✙

At 26 verses, Psalm 136 is longer than the average psalm, and each of the 26 verses consists of two clauses. What's really unusual about it, however, is that every single one of the second clauses—all 26 of them—is identical:

for his steadfast love endures forever.

In the Authorized Version of the scriptures (KJV), Jesus said not to use "vain repetitions" when we pray [Matt. 6:7, NRSV "heap up empty phrases]. And when you think about it, both testaments of the Bible are quite free of this kind of repetitiveness. Some churches even avoid repetition in hymns. For example, I was a Methodist most of my life, and I am accustomed to singing their tunes to most hymns. In some cases theirs

The Ordained Ministry

Blessed be the Lord from Zion, he who resides in Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

✙ Ps. 135:21 ✙

It seems primitive, somehow, to modern Christians for Israel to have claimed one spot on earth as God's dwelling-place. We, of course, know that God is everywhere, and is not limited to one home built with stone and wood. But of course the ancient Hebrews also knew this. What we interpret as primitive was probably a necessity back then. The belief that God could be worshiped anywhere and everywhere did not necessarily help preserve monotheism. When people felt that a particular location was holy and were free to sacrifice to God on that spot, it quickly degenerated into a belief that

The Greatest of These

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

 ✙ 1 Corinthians 13:13 ✙

O Lord, you have made us very small, and we bring our years to an end like a tale that is told; help us to remember that beyond our brief day is the eternity of your love. Amen.

✙ Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) ✙

supplementary gods

For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

✙ Ps. 135:5-7 ✙

In Psalm 135:5, I see the word Lord occurring twice in English. But this isn't what I'd see if I read it in Hebrew. There, in the first clause, the Name of God (יהוה‬) is given, and in the second, "our Lord" is אֲדֹנֵינוּ (or Adonai-nu). As in other psalms, the way I read this in the 21st century is very different from what it was originally read. Israel's