Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 117 is the middle chapter in the Bible, the shortest chapter, and the shortest psalm. It reads:
  Praise the Lord, all you nations,
    extol him, all you peoples, 
  For great is his love toward us,
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. 
(Ps 117:1-2).

I comment briefly on three big themes in this small psalm.

First, the God of Israel is affirmed as the God of all nations and all peoples. In many psalms, God is praised for the power of his kingship. But in this psalm, he is presented as the God who deserves praise from everyone. Worship, not world domination, is in view. 

Second, the reason for praising God is because of his love and faithfulness. The psalms address God as the fearful judge of individuals and nations, but they also remind him that he is also a God of love and compassion. They cite our reliable earth as a sign of God’s generosity: we count on the oceans to stop at the shore, on seasons to bring seedtime and harvest, on the sun and moon to mark day and night. The psalms encourage God to keep up the good work, and to extend his faithful  generosity to people: relieving poverty and distress, protecting in danger. Psalm 117 summarizes these themes by citing God’s great love and his enduring faithfulness. 

A third big theme, stated in the psalm’s final two words, is God’s relationship to time. His faithfulness endures forever. God provides an unending supply of goodwill. Not the partial and fickle goodwill we see in politicians and business leaders, not generosity prompted by election cycles and business cycles. God’s goodness is forever. 

Let’s pray. 

God of the nations, we praise you. 
– Not because the world is at peace, for it is not. 
– Not because rulers implement your plans, for they don’t. 
– Not because history moves in an orderly progression of empires and cultures, for it does not. 

We praise you as God of the nations by faith.
– Faith that you established Christ as your king and your judge
– Faith that though empires rise and fall, you watch and wait and supervise the outcomes.
– Faith that though the world does its worst, you are busy doing your best.
– Faith that creation’s groaning is but a temporary interlude in the rise of your kingdom.
– Faith that our praises invite your presence and work in the world. 

God of faithfulness, we praise you. 
– Not because you have worked out our lives to our satisfaction, but because you are working them out to your satisfaction. 
– Not because you have made our road smooth, but because you travel it with us.
– Not because we see an end to our problems, but because you know the end from the beginning, and you are preparing a hope and a future for us. 

O God of eternity, we praise you. 
– Because our short lives on earth participate in your eternal plan.
– Because you do not count our lives in minutes and hours, but in the honor we show you.
– Because our small loves are a shadow of your great love for us.

We praise you, God of the nations, God of faithfulness, God of eternity. Remember us as we remember you.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep247_Psalm116.  I Love You, Lord.

Psalm 116 begins with the confession, unusual in the psalms, “I love the Lord.” 

Given the central Old Testament command, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” (Deut. 6:5), I find it surprising that more psalms don’t focus on the poet’s love for God. 

Perhaps this is because any relationship with God is complex and intangible. Few of us experience a deep, conscious love of God all our lives. Instead, like the psalms, we often experience ambivalence toward God, which sometimes tilts strongly to annoyance and distrust, and at other times embraces deep and intimate feelings. 

Perhaps it’s like courtship and marriage. After the initial burst of love, the partners encounter intractable differences in perspectives, values, cleanliness, and expectations. The two who had so much in common quickly discover how little that much really is. But if they persist in caring for each other, and permit themselves to grow and change, love may take root quietly under the surface. Not a visible and expressive love like young courtship, but a deep confidence in the goodness of their relationship, despite the disappointments and changes life brings. 

So too with the poet’s relationship with God. His expression of love is not youthful infatuation, it is the mature reflection of one who has walked with God on life’s long road. The poet says he loves God because God listened to his desperate prayer. One surmises that this is only one experience of many in which the poet prayed and God helped. He says,
  The cords of death entangled me;
        the anguish of the grave came over me;
        I was overcome by distress and sorrow. 
  Then I called on the name of the Lord (vv. 3-4a). 

God responded. The poet says,
  You, Lord, delivered me from death,
      my eyes from tears,
      my feet from stumbling,
  that I may walk before you
      in the land of the living (vv. 8-9). 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, in our years of seeking you who we do not see, in the mystery and quandary of prayers answered and unanswered, in the bewilderment of issues resolved and unresolved, you have found your way deep into our hearts. You are present to us in places we didn’t know existed until you moved in. 

We love you because you listen when we cry to you. How rare it is that anyone listens to us, especially to our irritating litany of complaints. But you, Lord, hear our voice, you hear our cry for mercy (v. 1). 

We love because you give us life. When the fear of death enslaves us, when our lives seem hopeless and worthless, you rescue us and show us meaning in your grace and justice and compassion. With the poet we say,
    Return to your rest, my soul,
      for you, God, have been good to me (v. 7). 

We love you because you rescue us. We despair at relationships we bungle, at our faithlessness in seeking you, at our slowness to give up favored sins. But you seek us out, you release the chains that bind us, you draw us close to yourself. 

And so with the poet:
  We lift up the cup of salvation,
      and we call on your name, O Lord. 

We love you. 

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 115 begins:
    Not to us, O Lord, not to us, 
       but to your name give glory,
  for the sake of your steadfast love
      and your faithfulness. (v 1) 

Then Psalm 115 it raises the big question: does God really exist, saying:
    Why should the nations say,
      “Where is their God?” (v. 2). 

This question is relevant because the nations parked their gods in temples. Visible. Touchable. Easily worshipped. Israel also had a temple, but no image of God in residence, prompting the question, “Where is their God?” 

The poet responds:
  Our God is in the heavens,
    he does whatever he pleases (v. 2b). 

The poet contrasts his competent God with the inert idols of the nations, confined to their temples, unable to exercise power. He says:

   They have mouths, but can’t speak,
      eyes but can’t see.
  Ears, but can’t hear
      noses, but can’t smell.
  They have hands, but they can’t feel;
      feet, but they can’t walk. (vv. 5-8). 

The idols are dumb, deaf, blind, immobile, and unfeeling. Still, they present a dangerous risk to those who make and worship them. The poet says:
  Those who make them become like them
      so do all who trust in them. (v.  8).    

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we heed your warning not to become like the gods we serve. If we serve money, we become cold and calculating. If we serve conspiracy theories, we become distrustful and paranoid. If we serve social media, we develop short attention spans and thoughtless speech. 

Help us to serve you, our God, to become like you. Help us to be thoughtful, reflecting on your creation, agreeing with you that it is good. Help us become creative, inventing new solutions for old problems, developing new ways to help your world and love its people. Help us become patient with others, accepting mistakes as the road to growth, lending a helping hand. Help us become joyful, not despairing at everything that is wrong, but rejoicing  in faith and hope.  

Help us not to become like the gods of the nations, with unseeing eyes, unhearing ears, feeling hands, unspeaking mouths.  

With our eyes may we see the good and the bad in our world, looking with compassion on the hurting, with hatred on the evil, with obedience on your face. 

With our ears, may we hear your word calling us to repentance and faith, to righteousness and service of others. With our mouths may we speak your praise, delivering encouragement to the discouraged and hope to the depressed. With our hands may we help the weak, serve the poor, and bring about your justice. 

O father, with the poet we wait for your blessing, as he says:
  You have remembered us and you will bless us;
      you will bless the house of Israel;
      you will bless the house of Aaron.
  You will bless those who fear you,
      both great and small (vv. 12-13). 

And with the poet,
    We will bless you, Lord,
      both now and forever more (v. 18). 

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 114 asks: 
   What is wrong with you, Red Sea, that you flee,
      River Jordan that you turn back,
  mountains, that you dance like rams,
      hills, like a flock of lambs? (vv. 5-6)

Clearly, something has disrupted nature. Creation has become unpredictable. Mountains dance, seas flee, the river Jordan reverses itself. How so? 

Because when God marched Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land, he created something new. He reversed the physical laws of the old creation. The world was disturbed by God’s power as he called out a people of his own. Pharaoh and Egypt bowed before a greater king. The Red Sea waters got out of the way of God’s awesome presence and let his people pass. The mountains danced an earthquake as God gave the law from Mt. Sinai. The river Jordan reversed its flow when Joshua marched in. 

The poet says,
  Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord,
      at the presence of the God of Jacob  (v. 7). 

Clearly, God’s creative power did not end at creation. His work continued in the world.

The poet concludes with the greatest and most stunning reversal of all. God:
    Turned rock into a pool,
      flint into springs of water (v. 8).  

In the Middle Ages, alchemy was supposed to turn lead into gold and wood into silver. Alchemy failed as a science. But when God wanted water, he produced it from a rock. When God finds that the old rules don’t accomplish what he wants, he overrules them, and does something new.

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we read the old stories of the Red Sea and Jordan and Sinai, but we hear them as yesterday’s news. They don’t connect us with your power and awesomeness as the poet did. 

O Father, show us that you are indeed the same God who created a new people in Israel, and a new people in Christ. Lead us through our Red Sea, across our wilderness, through mountain and earthquake and fire to the land you are preparing for us. Make us part of your new people today. 

You displayed your power at the Red Sea and Mt. Sinai. You displayed your power at the empty tomb and we rejoice in your great works of the past. Look on our present day, with all its mediocrity, its lack of power, its spiritual lethargy. Teach us in our modern day to live in the nearness and power of your presence that these stories teach us. 

Teach us the power of your truth, that we may discern the lies of consumerism and militarism and nationalism.  Teach the power of your righteousness so we can resist the temptations of legalism and individualism and arrogance. Teach us the beauty of your creation, that we may worship you as the maker of seasons and the God of life and light. 

Paul said, “If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. The old has passed, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). But Paul also says the old creation groans with birth pangs, longing to be reborn (Rom 8:22). We too long to be recreated, to put on new bodies that will reveal our identity as your sons and daughters (Rom 8:23). Draw us fully into your new creation, we pray. Do something new for us in this life and the next.

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me”.

Psalm 113 is the first in a sequence of six psalms of praise. At the end of the book of Psalms,.we will encounter another sequence of six. If you have felt, as I have, that the book of psalms has tilted too much toward grief and laments and enemies and trouble, then fasten your seatbelts. From here on the psalms will fly through the skies singing God’s praise instead of moping in the pit of despair. 

I’m not sure I’m ready for this. I have grown accustomed to the dark, to praying from deep in the mud rather than flying on wings of praise. The psalms have been a welcome companion in my darkness, but the poet doesn’t build his home there. He doesn’t give the last word to despair, but praise. God’s faithfulness is a lamp, his loving kindness a light.  Let’s go to that place with the poet. 

The first three verses of Psalm 113 are overloaded with calls to praise. Repeating his favorite word five times, the poet urges us to: praise, praise, praise, bless, and praise the Lord. Do you catch the hint? The poet praises God in time, both now and forevermore (v. 2b) and he praises God in space, from the rising of the sun to its setting (v. 3). Everywhere, every time, is a time for praise. No exceptions. 

The remaining six verses of Psalm 113 explain what God does that deserves our praise. 

Who is like our God, the poet asks, seated high above the heavens, looking a long way down to heaven and earth? God sees the poor in the dust and he lifts them up, he sees the needy on the dunghill and he makes them sit with princes. He sees the barren woman and he makes her a mother of children.  

Praise the Lord. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we welcome this day to look away from our pandemic ridden world, away from our menial employments, away from our cares for self and family. In the routine of life, we have become drudges, stuck in darkness, focusing on what is wrong, weary of pressing on. With the poet, we lift our eyes to you, rejoicing in what is right.

You, our God, are still above the heavens, above the dictators and presidents of the world. You watch this play we stage on earth, the politics we invent, the drama we generate. You see our exits and entrances. We praise you that you write the script and direct the play we stage.

We praise you for what you do. You see the needy and provide a food bank, the homeless and you create a home. You see the jobless and give them a vocation with princes. The childless woman you make a  mother. To struggling church members, you give grace. To the mentally ill a new life. To the war-torn countries you bring peace.  

Lord, if we look with cynical eyes, we see endless poverty and injustice. But in our moments of faith, we see Christ’s work of compassion and healing, delivered in medical missions and social programs and church potlucks and neighbourhood parties. With the poet, we praise you for every person who has a place to call home, has enough to eat, and a job and a family. Look upon those still in the dust and dung heaps of the world, and lift them also to a new life.

With the poet, we praise you as the God of nations and the God of individuals, the God who sustains the life of the world, who intervenes in the muddled mess, who creates joy and beauty. 

Who is like you, O God? We praise your holy name. 

Amen.

I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube video with links to podcast at: Pray with Me – YouTube