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

Psalm 104 opens with an amazing description of God:
    The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
        he stretches out the heavens like a tent
        and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
    He makes the clouds his chariot
        and rides on the wings of the wind.
    He makes the winds his messengers,
        flames of fire his servants (vv. 2-4). 

These striking pictures of God playing in his creation. He dresses himself up in light. The heavens are the tent  he plays in. The upper story of his house goes right through the blue sky, with its joists fixed on the water above. He makes a chariot of the clouds and employs fire as his personal valet. He uses wind for the messaging app on his world wide web. God who created light, water, wind, clouds, and fire, now uses them for his clothes, transportation, servants, and messaging app.

Let’s pray some of the phrases from this psalm. 

Our God, we have seen wildfires in California and Australia and Siberia, driven restlessly by wind, consuming the plains and forests, sending smoke to the heavens. You are the God who rides on the wings of the wind, whose servants are flames of fire. 

The poet says:
    You water the mountains from your upper chambers;
       the land is satisfied by the fruit of your work.
    You make grass grow for cattle,
        and plants for people to cultivate. 
        The earth provides food:
     wine that makes our hearts glad
        oil that makes our faces shine,
        bread that sustains our hearts (vv. 14-15). 

You provide the necessities and luxuries of life: wine, oil, flour for bread. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!” 

The poet says,
    All creatures look to you
        to give them their food at the proper time. . . .
    When you open your hand,
        they are satisfied with good things.
    When you hide your face,
        they are terrified;
    when you take away their breath,
        they die and return to the dust.
    When you send your breath,
        they are created,
        and you renew the face of the ground (vv. 27-30).

We, like all creatures, Lord, receive our food from your hand. When your hand is open, we are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, we are terrified. When you take away our breath, we return to dust. 

But when you send your spirit, we are born again, and you renew the face of the earth. 

O Lord, this is the mystery of life. Our bodies come from the ground, and our food grows in the ground, and our lives end in the ground. But our breath, our spirit comes from you. We try to own the ground from which we come, and manage the clay bodies we live in, but it is you who sets the limits of our lives. You breathed into us when we were dust, you sustain us on this dusty earth, and one day our breath will return to you. 

With the poet we pray,
  May your glory be forever, Lord,
      may you rejoice in the work of your hands (v. 31).
  Let us sing to you, Lord, while we live,
      let our hymn be of you as long as we have breath (v.33). 

Amen.

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

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

Psalm 103 opens with a well-known call to worship:
    Bless the Lord, O my soul,
        and all that is within me
        bless his holy name (v. 1). 

Some modern translations say “Praise the Lord” instead of “Bless the Lord”, but I prefer the word bless. I like the reciprocity, the relationship implied by mutual blessing: God blesses us, and we bless him back. When we feel God’s goodness in our lives, we respond by speaking blessing to others and back to God. Bless the Lord, O my soul. 

The poet blesses God for the good things he gives. God forgives, heals, redeems, crowns us with love and compassion, satisfies our desires with good things, and renews our life like the eagle’s (vv. 3-5). God’s blessings move us toward  lives of wholeness, health, and meaning. 

The poet, who has faced God’s anger and displeasure, does not give way to fear, but asserts positively:
  He will not always accuse,
      nor will he harbour his anger forever;
  he does not treat us as our sins deserve,
      or repay us according to our iniquities.
  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
      so great is his love for those who fear him;
  as far as the east is from the west,
      so far has he removed our transgressions from us (vv. 9-12). 

Author Walter Brueggemann says, “Psalm 103 stuns those in the chaos of the exile with the proclamation that YHWH [God] acts out of compassion rather than a precise moral calculus. Divine generosity far outlasts the encounter with divine wrath” (Psalms, by Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger, Cambridge University Press, 2018, Kindle, chapter “Psalm 103”). God doesn’t crunch the numbers, weighing our bad deeds against our good. He  forgoes punishing sin, he discards the memory of it, and acts with infinite love. 

Let’s pray to this generous God. 

   As a father has compassion on his children,
    so you have compassion on us, Lord.
  You know how we are formed,
    you remember that we are dust (vv. 13-14). 

Our father, where we have castigated ourselves for broken relationships, failed resolutions, and endless sin, we come to you for forgiveness, healing, and redemption. Where we have lived with long regret for things done and said, and for things not done and not said, we come to you. We remember your promise to satisfy our desires with good things and to renew our life like the eagles (v. 5). Satisfy us, Lord, with the healing of our bodies and minds, with the restoration of relationships, with growing character, and hearts at rest. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days (Ps 90:14). 

The poet says,
    The life of mortals is like grass,
        they flourish like a flower of the field;
    the wind blows over it and it is gone,
        and it’s place remembers it no more.
    But from everlasting to everlasting
        your love is with those who fear you,
        and your righteousness with their children’s children (vv. 15-17). 

Yes Lord, we feel our lives and our world passing away like grass. The great American democracy drifts toward chaos, Russian politics revert to brutal dictatorship, and the Chinese empire assets its power in a violent world. Our bodies age, our loved ones decline, we attend more funerals than weddings. But your love, O Lord, is from everlasting to everlasting, and your righteousness with our children’s children. 

With poet John G. Whittier, we respond to your love, as he says:
    Yet, in this maddening maze of things,
        And tossed by storm and flood,
    To one fixed hope my spirit clings,
        I know that God is good.
    I dimly guess from blessings known,
        Of greater out of sight,
    And with the chastened psalmist own,
        His judgments too are right (The Eternal Goodness, lines 41-44, 53-56).. 

Judge us, O Lord, as you must, but in mercy and love, in kindness and gentleness. 

Amen.

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

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”.