Tag: Psalms

Scripture Focus: Psalm 49.5-15
5 Why should I fear when evil days come, 
when wicked deceivers surround me— 
6 those who trust in their wealth 
and boast of their great riches? 
7 No one can redeem the life of another 
or give to God a ransom for them— 
8 the ransom for a life is costly, 
no payment is ever enough— 
9 so that they should live on forever 
and not see decay. 
10 For all can see that the wise die, 
that the foolish and the senseless also perish, 
leaving their wealth to others. 
11 Their tombs will remain their houses forever, 
their dwellings for endless generations, 
though they had named lands after themselves. 
12 People, despite their wealth, do not endure; 
they are like the beasts that perish. 
13 This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, 
and of their followers, who approve their sayings. 
14 They are like sheep and are destined to die; 
death will be their shepherd 
(but the upright will prevail over them in the morning). 
Their forms will decay in the grave, 
far from their princely mansions. 
15 But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead; 
he will surely take me to himself. 

Reflection: The Promise of Justice
By John Tillman

The Bible is the most grounded and realistic of holy texts. Scripture doesn’t blink when things go bad. It weeps. Biblical authors don’t shy from distressing realities. Cries for justice ring out in every book.

Modern people deceive ourselves that evil is only a disagreement about mutual benefits. The Bible knows that evil is real and people both cause and suffer from it.

Complaints and cries for justice come from an awareness of its lack. Deep down, humans know a moral standard exists. Those who deny moral absolutes cannot show that they lack anything. Without a moral ideal, no complaint regarding justice can be made. Without some measure of wrongness, there is no reason to expect goodness. How can a world with no absolutes be upset about evil? So you suffered or were harmed… Well, what did you expect? Who promised you something else?

Only amidst the Bible’s moral absolutes do we find a promise of justice.

We know, soul-deep and sinew deep, that sin exists. This is what it means to have partaken of the fruit. We KNOW evil. It looks good and tastes sweet, but soon, it cramps us up, doubling us over. The knowledge of good and evil sickens our stomachs and rumbles through our guts. We soil ourselves with it, and the runoff soils the earth, awakening Death.

The psalmist pulls no punches about death, the greatest evil of all. Death is the last enemy to be defeated. (Even though he has already lost.) Death treats rich and poor with perfect and efficient equity, yet every death is unjust to the Lord of life.

We work whatever justice we can on earth, but when death comes, human justice is insufficient. We cannot restore or repay, even with our lives, the loss of a victim of murder, cancer, starvation, Covid, or any other cause. But just as evil exists, righteousness does too. Whatever meager form of justice humans offer, Christ’s justice is incomparably greater.

Death’s victims need not stay in his grasp. Death’s grasping arms were broken in a wrestling match lost at the cross. Christ kicked in Death’s doors, opening the pathway to life for all who believe.

Like Old Testament sacrifices, human justice is not meaningless, and we must enact it, but it is a mere shadow of the justice wrought by Christ. We do justice, as we do all else, in remembrance of His promise.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. — Psalm 31.24

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Kings 4 (Listen 6:17)
Psalms 49 (Listen 2:10)

Read more about Justice Starts Within
Justice starts within. It doesn’t stop there. May we answer the call…shining a light of justice and truth

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Scripture Focus: Psalm 42:5-7
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

Psalm 43:5
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Reflection: Sluggish Grief
By Erin Newton

In the movie, Paddington, one character reflects on his emotional journey of settling into a new place: “My body had traveled fast, but my heart… she took a little longer to arrive.” The heart can be sluggish during grief. It’s frustrating and discouraging.

I wish grief was a cycle; instead, it is a web. Our bodies are bound to the linear progression of time. We are moving from one event to another, but our hearts and minds are stuck in a tangled web of emotions and thoughts.

The repeated phrase, “Why, my soul, are you downcast?” reflects this emotional tangle. The psalmist tries to soothe himself with words of counsel. “Hope in God…Remember the good times.” Oh, I’ve heard those platitudes from others. And I’ve tried to use them to urge my heart into better spirits.

But grief is not linear. The stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—don’t happen sequentially.

Psalms 42-43 show this type of tangled emotional experience. At first, we see the depth of sadness, “tears have been my food day and night” (Psalm 42.3). Then a joyous memory, “How I used to go to the house of God…with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng” (Psalm 42.4). Then the declaration of depression, “all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”

The journey of emotional experience is like traveling across the mountains. There is the bright ascent to the peak, the crisp breeze, and clear skies. We gaze upon the view and see the other mountaintops, each basking in the pure sunlight. But to get there, we must descend into the valley, the dark woods.

Amy Carmichael calls this “The Ravine.” It is the painful memory of better days: “Yes, we were one of a festive crowd; was there any happy thing that we did not do? And we think of what used to be, so different from all that is now.”

Our minds know of God’s goodness, the joy of his presence, the hope of better days, but our hearts take a little longer to get there.

“We know that it is true. And yet there is something in the trend of our thoughts that is like the backwash of the waves, as wave after wave breaks on the shore…We have seen the lovely radiance of that upper air. But our feet must walk the ways of earth down that dreary hill, past those somber trees, and into the valley…”

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. — Psalm 126.6-7

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Kings 21 (Listen 4:19)
Psalms 42-43 (Listen 2:32)

Read more about Be With Me
The weight of our sadness reflects the hope of a beautiful life that has been tragically altered.
But we are not alone. God is near to the brokenhearted…

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Scripture Focus: Psalm 39.1-3
1 I said, “I will watch my ways 
and keep my tongue from sin; 
I will put a muzzle on my mouth 
while in the presence of the wicked.” 
2 So I remained utterly silent, 
not even saying anything good. 
But my anguish increased; 
3 my heart grew hot within me. 
While I meditated, the fire burned; 
then I spoke with my tongue: 

Reflection: Tongues, Thumbs, and Prayers
By John Tillman

The psalmist, presumably David, suffers in silence. He muzzles himself, not even saying good things because of the wicked. Silence increases his anguish. Inner turmoil heats up. He turns to meditation, but heat becomes a burning flame. So, he opens his mouth to speak…

If we stopped at verse three, we might assume the psalmist’s unsheathed speech became a sword, fighting for God. We might think his words laid waste to the wicked. We might imagine ourselves following the psalmist’s example by opening a social media app and delivering a diatribe of harsh truths to destroy ideological opponents. We’d be wrong.

The psalmist spoke to God, not humans. He had questions, not claims. He sought truth. He didn’t weaponize it. His faith was mixed with doubts. His courage was mixed with fears. His prayers were mixed with weeping.

Don’t forget the first verse of this psalm: “I will…keep my tongue from sin.” The Bible repeatedly warns us of sinning by speech. If James had seen us on mobile devices typing in our social media apps, he might have written “thumbs are a restless evil” instead of “tongues.” (James 3.17)

Should we—can we—use our tongues to speak or our thumbs to type without falling into sin?

Do we need better vocabulary? Surely if we eschew harsh, foul, or insulting language, our speech can’t be sinful? No.
Do we need to be less dogmatic? Surely we can avoid sin by placating both sides and avoiding hard stances? No.
Do we need greater intellect? Surely intellectualism, facts, and data can keep us from sinning by speech? No.

It is not our tongues or our thumbs that cause us to sin. It is our hearts. (Matthew 12.34; Luke 6.45) A better vocabulary won’t heal our hateful hearts. A more understanding tone won’t calm our heart’s fear of confrontation. The brightest of intellects can’t enlighten the sin-darkened pathways of our hearts. 

When avoiding sinful speech, the factor that is more important than our vocabulary, our sensitivity, or our wisdom is prayer. Our prayer life changes our hearts.

The psalmist is brutally honest with God. Are your prayers honest?
The psalmist seeks forgiveness and help. Are you confessing and requesting?

There is a time to speak up, testify to the truth, and defend what we believe. When that time comes, will our prayer life have prepared us to speak?

Divine Hours Prayer: The request for Presence
O Lord, my God, my Savior, by day and night, I cry to you. Let my prayer enter into your presence. — Psalm 88.1-2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Readings
1 Kings 19 (Listen 3:53)
Psalms 39 (Listen 1:49)

Read more about Prayer When None Are Faithful
We are dismayed, Lord…
We are sheep among wicked shepherds…
Will only braggarts lead?
Will only the boastful hold sway?

Read more about Cultivation Requires Planning
For a mustard seed faith to grow, it must be cultivated. Do you have a plan to cultivate your spiritual growth?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 36:5-9
5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
    your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
    your justice like the great deep.
    You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
    People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house;
    you give them drink from your river of delights.
9 For with you is the fountain of life;
    in your light we see light.

Reflection: Wide, Long, High and Deep
By Jon Polk

The Psalter is replete with references to the “two ways” of living, contrasting the wicked and the righteous, good versus evil. Chapter one, verse one starts it all off, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked.”

Indeed, this theme cuts a well-worn path throughout the Psalms and finds beautiful poetic expression here in Psalm 36.

Our psalmist opens with a customary lament about the presence and arrogance of evil in our world. Blinded by their own high opinions of themselves, the wicked act foolishly, plot evil, and pursue a sinful course of wrongdoing. All without regard to the presence and authority of God in the world.

But never fear, gentle reader! The virtues of God reign supreme! God’s unfailing love is as limitless as the skies, God’s righteousness is solid like the mountains high, and God’s justice plumbs the depths of the oceans. God’s love is indeed woven into the fabric of our world, preserving all of creation.

Why is there so much papyri in these ancient Psalms dedicated to the eternal struggle between the righteous and the wicked? 

Could it be that we are constantly reminded of the present reality of evil, the influence of the Accuser, or the bold arrogance of the self-righteous? Could it be that even in Christ, we are not promised a carefree existence, safe from struggle or difficulty? Could it be that we are weary and long to feast in God’s house, drink from God’s fountain of life, and witness God’s justice roll down like a river?

Could it be also that were it not for that same love, faithfulness, and righteousness of God, we ourselves would be counted among the number of the wicked?

The psalmist paints a portrait for us of the radical, joyous, and inclusive love of God, a love that welcomes all to find refuge in God’s wings. As Paul reminds the church in Ephesus, we were all once far away from God, without hope, but through Christ we have been brought near to God. We can truly celebrate with humble thanksgiving the God who sustains us and continues to love us.

So, if your world is unstable, your prospects bleak, or if you need a little more strength to get by, take heart and be reminded today of “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Eph. 3:18).

Music: “The Love of God” by Rich Mullins

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who trust in him! — Psalm 34.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Readings
1 Kings 16 (Listen 5:31)
Psalms 36 (Listen 1:29)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Kings 17 (Listen 3:14), Psalms 37 (Listen 4:21)
1 Kings 18 (Listen 7:08), Psalms 38 (Listen 2:14)

Read more about Make God’s Love Evident
There is great wickedness in the world. Yet, in such a world, the psalmist proclaims God’s love.

Read more about Becoming Light
We can have hope because God has love for us as his motivation. The core of who God is, is love.