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

Psalm 34 paints a bright picture of hope against a bleak background of suffering and terrors that break the heart and crush the spirit. Poet Luci Shaw wrote, 
    A piece of hope spins out
    bright, along the dark, and is not
    lost in space. . . 
    (Luci Shaw, “But Not Forgotten” in Listen to the Green (Colorado Springs: Harold Shaw Pub, 1973) 

Yes, that summarizes Psalm 34.

The first part of the psalm is a hymn of praise as the poet tells how the Lord delivered him. The second part encourages us to seek God because he rewards those who seek him. The last part is another section of praise for God’s deliverance. 

When my brother was in his early twenties, he suffered a broken hip on a mission trip to Sudan. He declined their medical treatment when they produced a used needle to inject painkillers. Back in Canada, he spent a year in and out of hospitals trying to save the hip. It never recovered, so the doctors finally fused it with a metal rod. My brother said that verses 19-20 of Psalm 34 tormented him all year. They read,
      The righteous person may have many troubles,
        but the Lord delivers him from them all;
      he protects all his bones,
        not one of them will be broken.
In the hospital, as my brother lay awake long nights in pain, he did a lot of thinking and feeling about that verse, “God protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.”

Perhaps our spiritual lives are more complex than naming and claiming the simple, straightforward promises. My brother’s experience connects with my prayer life. Jesus’ promise:  “I will do whatever you ask in my name” (John 14:13) does not work for me every time. In Psalm 34, the bright promises are painted against a backdrop where the poet describes the experience of the righteous as afflicted, troubled, fearful, crying, broken-hearted, and crushed in spirit. God is always present to us, sometimes protecting our bones or healing them, sometimes strengthening us to endure seemingly endless troubles.

Let’s pray. 

     I sought the Lord and he answered me,
        he delivered me from all my fears (v. 4).
Yes, God, you are the one who can drain the swamp of our fears.

      Those who look to you are radiant;
        Their faces will never be ashamed (v. 5).
May it be you, God, and not the cosmetics industry, who brings light to our eyes and joy to our faces. 

       This poor man called, and the Lord heard him,
          And saved him out of all his troubles. 
Yes, Lord, you hear, and you deliver us from our troubles (v. 6). 

        Taste and see that the Lord is good,
            Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him (v. 8).
Lord, we have tasted that you are good. We feel it when your face shines on us, we feel it when you give us peace in our confusion and light in our darkness. Turn our tasting into feasting, until we experience with all our heart that you are good.  

          Whoever loves life
             and desires to see many good days,
          Turn from evil and do good;
            Seek peace and pursue it (vv. 12, 14).
Yes, Lord, we love the life you offer — not a life of wealth and safety and escape from troubles, but a life of turning from evil to do good, a life of pursuing peace.

       The Lord is close to the broken-hearted,
            and saves those who are crushed in spirit (v. 13). 
Lord, we feel the brokenness of our spirit, our life, our world. Thank you for drawing near to broken hearts and crushed spirits.

        The Lord will rescue his servants;
            No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned (v. 22).
Thank you for looking out for us. Thank you for freeing us from all condemnation. Thank you for being our refuge in life and our hope in death. We wait quietly in your presence.

Amen.

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

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

In Psalm 33, a hymn of praise, the poet encourages us to sing a new song, accompanied by stringed instruments. Perhaps the poet had composed something new and wanted an enthusiastic and skillful performance. Today, we still need new songs. But when the worship team at my church strikes up an unfamiliar tune, old curmudgeons like me grumble, “Really? Aren’t the old songs good enough?”

The poet introduces two reasons for praise: The first is God’s word in creation (vv. 6-9) and the second, God’s role in history (vv. 10-19). Let’s look at both these reasons.

At creation, God spoke and the universe came into being. The poet says,
  By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
      and the stars by the breath of his mouth (v. 6).
What a beautiful picture. In winter, my breath creates a  small puff of water vapor and ice. But’s God’s breath at creation sent the the galaxies and stars and planets spinning into space. 

When God spoke again at creation, the world organized itself into sea and dry land and sky. The poet says, 
   He gathered the waters of the sea into mounds,
      the deep into storehouses (v. 7). 

After reviewing creation, the poet moves on to a history lesson, comparing God’s words with the words of humans. He says,
   The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing,
      he frustrates the plans of the people.
  The counsel of the Lord stands forever
    the thoughts of his heart to all generations (vv. 11-12). 

Yes, God is the overseer of human history, overriding the words and plans of the superpowers and the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, and Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals everywhere. Perhaps God is not as supportive of your political opinions as you imagine!

Let’s pray. 

Our father, Psalm 33 says,
    A king is not saved by his great army,
      A warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
  Truly, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
      on those who hope in his steadfast love (vv. 16, 18). 

O you who breathed the stars into place, look upon the history of our time. Confuse the counsels of the nations, frustrate the plans of the people.  As the US rachets up the trade war with China and shuts out immigrants, as Britain brexits and Canada elects a new leader; as Russia seeks to resurrect the Soviet glory days, as China flexes its military muscle and oppresses Uighurs and Tibetans, as India reasserts control over Kashmir, and Pakistan threatens nuclear retaliation; we come to you, O God of the nations. We pray to you, O God of history. 

Bring the nations to sanity. Frustrate the plans of the leaders. Stay the engines of war, guard the nuclear arsenals, keep your eye on those who hope in your steadfast love. Protect your people. 

O Lord, ours is a fearsome time in history as nations vy for power and reject your word. But you called the world into being, you supervise the rise and fall of empires, you watch men wage war and peace, but mostly war. In our lives and sometimes in our churches, we see your gracious hand heal the sick and bring peace and unity. We look to you to guide our personal history and the history of the world with your same steady hand that holds the universe in place. 

With the poet, we say
  Our soul waits for the Lord,
    you are our help and our shield.
  Our heart is glad in you,
    because we trust your holy name.
  Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
    even as we hope in you. 

Amen.

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

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

Psalm 32 tells the story of great sin and great forgiveness. The presumed background is David’s adultery with Bathsheba. After David got her pregnant, he arranged for her husband to get killed in battle. 

The psalm has four movements. 

The first movement is joy (vv. 1-2). It is a joy that forgiveness exists, a joy that instead of covering my sin and living in fear of exposure, I can confess them to God and ask him to cover them up. The poet says,
    Blessed is the one
      whose transgressions are forgiven,
      whose sins are covered (v. 1). 

Verse two is also reassuring.  It says, “Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them.” God is not the great accountant tracking sin on one side of the ledger and good deeds on the other, calculating which side wins when you die. The good news is that God has quit counting. The poet’s transgressions are forgiven, his sins are no longer counted against him.

The second movement in Psalm 32 tells how the poet felt when he covered up his sin.
  When I kept silent,
    my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
  For day and night
    your hand was heavy on me;
  my strength was sapped
    as in the heat of summer (vv. 3-4).

The third movement is the poet’s confession. When he quit hiding his sin, he told God the truth about what he had done. He lost that crushing burden of guilt and shame. He found that God had taken over the covering up, leaving him free and forgiven. Here’s how he says it:
    Then I acknowledged my sin to you
      and did not cover my iniquity.
    You forgave
        the guilt of my sin (v. 5).

The fourth movement is heartfelt thanksgiving which encourages others to follow the poet’s example of confession and forgiveness (v. 8-9). 

Let’s pray.

Lord, we pray the confession from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, 1994 edition:  

Gracious God,
    our sins are too heavy to carry,
    too real to hide, and too deep to undo.
Forgive what our lips tremble to name,
    what our hearts can no longer bear,
    and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.
Set us free from a past that we cannot change;
    open us to a future in which we can be changed;
    and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image;
    through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

And finally, a prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr.

Look with mercy upon the peoples of the world,
    so full both of pride and confusion,
    so sure of their righteousness and so deeply involved in unrighteousness,
    so confident of their power and so imprisoned by their fears of each other.
Have mercy upon our own nation.
    Purge us of the vainglory which confuses our counsels,  and
    give our leaders and our people the wisdom of humility and charity.
Help us to recognize our own affinity with…[the] malice that confronts us, 
     that we may not add to the world’s woe by the fury of our own resentments. 
Give your Church the grace in this time
to be a saving remnant among the nations, reminding all peoples
    of the divine majesty under whose judgement they stand, and
    of the divine mercy of which they and we have a common need. 
(Reinhold Niebuhr in The HarperCollins Book of Prayers compiled by Robert Van de Weyer (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 272.

Amen.

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

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

Psalm 31 brings us to familiar territory. Once again the poet is in crisis, once again he pleads with God to deliver him. Once again he moves through crisis to a place of confidence in God.

Billy Graham read through the psalms monthly. That’s about five psalms a day, with some adjustments around the long Psalm 119. On such a monthly schedule, the reader passes quickly through most of the difficult psalms. My experience is different, because I spend a whole week in each psalm preparing for the “Pray with Me” channel and blog. If consecutive psalms have themes of desperation and pain, that’s a whole month in the pit for me. I begin to feel weighed down. I’m glad most psalms, including our psalm today, move toward praise and hope. 

Here are some famous phrases from Psalm 31. 

“Lord into your hands I commit my spirit” (v. 5). Jesus quoted these words while dying on the cross. 

“You have set my feet in a spacious place” (v. 8). The poet feels hemmed in by his enemies, by traps laid for him, by accusations against him, by life’s emotional and physical pains. But God frees him from his prison and locates him to an open field under a blue sky. The poet’s difficult situation may be unchanged, but renewed trust in God brings hope and life and freedom. 

Another famous phrase from Psalm 31 is “My times are in your hands” (v.15). What a classic statement of trust, promising that God watches over the timeline of our life. 

Psalm 31 also says, “Keep them safe in your dwelling from the strife of tongues” (v. 20). I like this King James translation, “strife of tongues” better than the modern versions. The word “strife” describes the worst features of evil speech — bickering, dissension, quarreling, animosity, conflict. Perhaps James had this in mind when he wrote in his epistle, “The tongue is a fire, a world of evil, it corrupts the whole body, sets the whole life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6). 

Let’s pray. 

Lord, our times are in your hands. Facebook keeps a timeline of my life. So does Google. Medical information systems track the timeline of my health. Work keeps a timeline of my projects. The bank, a timeline of my finances. How refreshing to believe that my times are in your hands, O God. Big brother may be watching, but you count the minutes and keep the score.

Lord, keep us safe in your dwelling, far from the strife of tongues. We brace for another cycle of elections, with attack ads and acrimonious messages. Churches chew up their pastors and spit them out. Supervisors manipulate and mismanage. Dictators falsely accuse and threaten. Customers dump rudeness and arrogance on hapless service people. Keep us, O Lord, in your dwelling. Keep us safe from the strife of tongues. 

Lord, set our feet in a spacious place. We are imprisoned by poor health, difficult relationships, and stressful demands. Our blood pressure rises and our coping strategies fail. Bring us out of our prison, O Lord. Show us a place of freedom and beauty and choice.  

Lord, into your hands we commit our spirit. You see the inner person. You see your breath of life in bodies of clay. We commit our spirit to you. Keep us from evil, keep us safe in your dwelling, form us in the image of Christ.

Amen.

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

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

Psalm 30 is an envelope Psalm that  begins and ends with praise. It starts,
    I will exalt you, Lord  (v. 1)
and it concludes
    O Lord my God, I will praise you forever (v. 12). 

Inside this envelope of praise, the poet tells how he moved from despair to thanksgiving. The story begins with his intense need. He was in a  life-threatening situation and felt dragged into a dark pit. He was stuck in desperation and despair. 

Then God rescued him.  When he felt most abandoned, God showed up and pulled him out of the pit. The poet says God was angry, but that “his anger lasts only a moment; then he gives favor forever” (v. 5). The poet wept for one brutal night, but in the morning God gave the gift of joy (v. 5). The poet was shuffling hopelessly through life, but God set his feet dancing (v. 11).  

That’s Psalm 30, the poet’s thank you card to God, tucked nicely in an envelope of praise. 

Let’s pray our own envelope prayer, like the poet did. 

Lord, we give you thanks, we give you praise. Though parts of the world are darkened by industrial pollution and wildfire smoke, yet the sun still shines and crops still grow. Though right wing politicians mock truth and left wing politicians propose utopian fantasies, your law still governs our hearts and minds. Though the church strays into errors of liberalism and fundamentalism, still your word is preached and prayers are offered. Though our lives are narrow and selfish, you have made your home in us. We give you thanks.  

You answered our deepest prayers. The woman whose son has been decades in prison is at last able to visit him. The man who fell again into pornography confessed and started over. The boy dying of leukemia responded to treatment: his prospects are hopeful. The victim of unthinkable abuse has begun to find healing and forgiveness. The minister who scolded his people every week with the bad news of sin has at last found the good news of grace. We who resented the church and your laws and your people now feel your Spirit softening our hard hearts with a new way of love. 

We say, “Thank you, good Lord.” Thank you for intervening in our sickness. Thank you for showing us our sin and pointing us to a new life. Thank you for not abandoning us to the deadly consequences of our ways. Thank you for finding us drifting on the ocean and giving us a compass and setting our sail for home.

Where we were abused, you taught us forgiveness. Where we were lonely, you became our companion.  Where we were isolated you called us into community. Where we made bad decisions, you gave us grace to start over. When our carelessness broke relationships, you taught us how to rebuild. When all our roads led to despair, you built a bridge of hope. 

Thank you for not leaving us in the pit we dug. Thank you for shining light into our darkness. Thank you for rescuing us from our enemies. Thank you for being our help, our stronghold and our salvation. 

Amen.

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