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

Psalm 102 has a two-line title which describes it as:
    The prayer of an afflicted person who has grown weak
        and pours out a lament before the Lord. 

In this psalm, the poet is shaken to his core. He says,
    My days vanish like smoke;
        my bones burn like glowing embers.
    My heart is blighted and withered like grass; (vv. 3-4a).
    I eat ashes for food
        and mingle my drink with tears
    because of your great wrath. . . (vv. 9-10a). 

Sleepless nights. Tearful days. Starvation diet. Burning bones. Little wonder the poet feels his life is lost, vanishing like smoke in the wind. Shadows lengthen on his years. He withers in the heat of the day and passes into evening like sun-scorched grass. 

Not only is the poet shaken: his city, Zion, is also shaken. He prays for restoration, saying:
    You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
        it is time to show favour to her. . .
      For her stones are dear to your servants;
        her very dust moves them to pity (vv. 13a, 14).

Returning to his personal troubles, the poet contrasts his brief, painful, and ephemeral life with God’s eternity:
    In the course of my life, [the Lord] broke my strength;
        he cut short my days.
    So I said
    Do not take me away, my God, in the midst of my days;
        your years go on through all generations.
    In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
        and the heavens are the work of your hands.
    They will perish, but you remain;
        they will all wear out like a garment.
    Like clothing you will change them
        and discard them.
    But you remain the same,
        and your years will never end (vv. 23-27).

The poet frames the brevity and pain of his life against God’s eternity and creative activity. The poet’s life is wearing out. The world he lives in running down. The heavens above are aging and passing away. God made them all like a fashion show, where the costumes that dazzle the runway today will be discarded at the end of the season.

Let’s pray. 

O Lord, our life is smoke, a vapor that disperses in the air, a grass that withers and dies. We live a few short days, never achieving the glory you made us for, leaving no permanent trace of our passing. 

But you, O Lord, outlive the changes. The earth that to us is unshakeable will wear out like a garment, the heavens will collapse like clothes thrown in the laundry hamper. But your life and watchfulness outlast it all. You remain the same, your years will never end. 

With the poet we pray, 
     Do not hide your face from me
        when I am in distress (v. 2a).
    Do not take me away in the midst of my days (v. 24a). 
    May the children of your servants live in your presence;
        establish their descendants before you (v. 28). 

Amen.

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

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

Psalm 101 opens with  a song to the Lord, praising his love and justice. Then it moves quickly to personal application as the poet says:
    I will be careful to lead a blameless life–
        when will you come to me? (v. 2).

What a poignant question. If prayer is a dialogue with God, when will God show up and speak with us? And what shall we do while we wait for him? 

The poet starts the psalm with two things he does while he waits:
    First, he sings to the Lord, praising his love and justice (v. 1).
    Second, he affirms his commitment to lead a blameless life (v. 2a). 
The remainder of the psalm describes this life the poet intends to live. 

Let’s pray some phrases from the psalm. 

Our father, we wait for you. When will you come to us? We long for your presence. As we wait, we renew our commitment to you and to your law, our commitment to live lives that are moral, loving, holy. As we review our commitment, we invite you to remember your commitment to us as our saviour, shepherd, helper, and friend. 

The poet says,
    I will conduct the affairs of my house
        with a blameless heart (v. 2b).

Give us blameless hearts, Lord. Pure hearts, free of self-promotion, self-indulgence, self-pity. Hearts that act in love and mercy, treating our neighbors with dignity and respect. 

The poet says,
      I will not look with approval
          on anything that is vile.
      I hate what faithless people do;
          I will have no part in it (v. 3).

Yes, Lord,  help us to discern good and evil in our hearts, our lives, and our society. Cure us of delusions, of false dreams about the good we would do if we were rich and powerful and influential. Help us to live graciously and thankfully our small lives of faith. As we wait for you, we submit our lives and our thoughts to your law. 

The poet says,
    The perverse of heart shall be far from me;
        I will have nothing to do with what is evil.
      Whoever slanders their neighbour in secret,
          I will put to silence;
      whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart,
          I will not tolerate  (vv 4-5).     

Yes, Lord, save us from personal and professional relationships that would corrupt us. Give us courage to silence those who slander others. Help us to recognize haughty eyes and proud hearts, and to avoid them. 

The poet says,
      My eyes will be on the faithful in the land,
          that they may dwell with me;
      the one whose way of life is blameless
          will minister to me (v. 6). 

Set before our eyes the faithful in the land. May we reject what is violent and corrupt and evil, and learn from those who live by faith and righteousness.

 The poet says,
      No one who practises deceit
        will dwell in my house;
      no one who speaks falsely
        will stand in my presence (v. 7).

With the poet, Lord, we commit ourselves to the truth, and to those who speak truly. We renounce conspiracy theories and fake news; we renounce those who spend their spiritual energy by meditating on the evils of big pharma and deep state and lamestream media. Help us to meditate on your word, to discern and live by its truth. Help us to see this present evil age as you see it, God. Give us eyes of faith to see Christ and his kingdom. 

And do not forget to come to us as we wait for you. 

Amen.

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

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

Of all the COVID-19 inspired vocabulary–like social distancing, flatten the curve, COVIDiot, doomscrolling, and others–my favorite is probably “sheeple”, a portmanteau of the words “sheep” and “people”. 

The word “sheeple” is used by self-confident, self-righteous conspiracy theorists to point out how docile and easily influenced the rest of us are, because we believe lies about COVID-19, propagated by the Deep State and Big Pharma and the Lamestream media and Bill Gates. Those who are not sheeple flock to right-wing media and social media they believe are free from corrupting motives like profit and audience size and corporate attachments. They graze on sources of information they think are courageous and objective purveyors of truth, who see and denounce the hoaxes we sheeple graze on. 

Psalm 100, which we look at today, says:
  Know that the Lord is God.
  It is he who has made us and we are his.
   We are his people and the sheep of his pasture (v. 2). 

When I was a child, my mother taught my older brother Psalm 23, the shepherd psalm, and she taught me Psalm 100, the thanksgiving psalm. Each night at bedtime, my brother would quote Psalm 23 and I would quote Psalm 100. Then mother turned out the light, and we would drift off to sleep confident that God cared for his little sheep. 

Sheep, that is, not sheeple. Because the Biblical image of people as sheep is based in truth and reality, not in pandemic denial or conspiracy theories. My childhood version of the psalm said,
    Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who has made us and not we ourselves.

It is comforting to remember that we are part of God’s creation. We are not random products of evolution. We are not self-creating, self-defining beings. We are creatures, made and watched over by a creator, who cares for us like a shepherd tending his sheep. 

Let’s pray. 

Lord, we pray some of the phrases of this thanksgiving psalm. 

We worship you with gladness, we come before you with joyful songs (v. 2) because you are creator and shepherd. You made us. You breathed into us the breath of life. Christ breathed on his us and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). You are the breath that breathes in us, the spirit that lives in us, the shepherd who leads us, the God who provides for us in good times and bad. 

We enter your gates with thanksgiving and your courts with praise. Like a lover coming home to her beloved, like a sheep coming home to the fold, we step from our profane world into the sacred space of your temple. You are our true home, our lasting abode, our heart’s desire. 

We seek you and love you, not as docile unthinking sheeple, but as humans made in your image, as creatures  who need the care of a shepherd, as subjects who honori a wise and good king. Watch over us forever in goodness and love, protect and guide us in your faithfulness, speak to us and lead us to your home forever. 

Amen.

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