Wisdom for every day
In various monastic writings we find two verses emphasized as being among the most spiritually effective prayers. Psalm 71:1-2 (NIV)–
In you, LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, rescue me and save me.
It is emphasized because it is the prayer of desperation, encapsulating a heart’s cry, pointing it efficiently towards God. The spiritually wise suggested repeating this regularly, throughout the day. Not only for those who are encountering crises. For everyone. Because while it is the prayer of the oppressed, pleading for God’s salvation, it is also a prayer of grounding. Those who deal with pride, or arrogance, or easy living are reminded of their status and their goal. This establishes the relationship, a pledge of allegiance of sorts. We are all in need of God’s salvation, and asking for it reminds us of those places that we might like to hide from or ignore–or do not see in the moments of bounty.
Worth looking at other translations.
New Living Translation:
O Lord, I have come to you for protection;
don’t let me be disgraced.
Save me and rescue me,
for you do what is right.
Turn your ear to listen to me,
and set me free.
New King James:
In You, O LORD, I put my trust;
Let me never be put to shame.
Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape;
Incline Your ear to me, and save me.
NRSV:
In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.
Along with the Jesus prayer–”Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”–these verses are a way to center and re-center, orienting us right in the midst of our busy lives. Easy and profound expressions of deep theology and deep faith.
As I’m writing today I’m hit with another passage that serves much the same purpose. Rather than being prayer towards God, however, this one is a reminder from God to us.
Exodus 14:13-14
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
Here we have an antecedent to Ephesians 6 and Isaiah 31.
The Israelites have been freed from Egypt, but they are not yet free. They stand at the edge of the Red Sea, blocked. Pharaoh realizes he made a mistake. Who is this God of Israel that could take away his slaves? He gathers his army. He pursues the newly emancipated.
Exodus tells us:
They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
Life became overwhelming. They were terrified, broken, emptied of hope. They saw what was following them and they despaired.
“Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
The Egyptians throughout Scripture represent ‘the world’–its terrors, its promises, its enslavements, or its companionship. Sometimes it is a place of God given safety. More often it is the feared oppressor or the false security. We run from Egypt because of its power. We embrace Egypt because it promises protection.
We see the Egyptians about us. In our struggles and in our temptations. We fear. We lose hope. We stumble in the strain. We go crazy, act angry, no longer reflections of Christ.
And God reminds us.
“Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
Stations of the Resurrection
Christ is risen.
Happy Easter!!
The Stations of the Cross are an important meditation. But focusing so much on that leaves out so much of what we really are about. We’re not only forgiven, we are now free to really begin to live, live free now and through eternity.
In thinking of this, after several years of focusing on the Stations of the Cross as both a physical experience at the church I worked at and as a written exercise I thought it worthwhile to have a go at the Stations of the Resurrection. I’ve heard since there are other forms of this, but as I was going by my own inspiration and couldn’t find guidance at the time I have chosen these fourteen emphases, beginning with Easter and ending on Pentecost.
Someday, given the space and opportunity again, it might be fun to put these into some kind of physical, sensory, experience.
For now… writing and art. Enjoy these Stations of the Resurrection.
He is risen indeed.
Holy Saturday Part II
This is one of the more unusual days in the religious calendar. Friday is the crucifixion, that day in which we say that our sins were cleansed by the sacrifice of the Lamb. He took on the burden so we would not.
Tomorrow we celebrate the resurrection, the time in which death itself lost its sting, so that we who are of the Faith fear Sheol no more. To live is Christ, Paul says, and to die is gain. Death is but a transition from life to Life.
Saturday, today, is in between. Why didn’t Jesus come out on the Sabbath? Was it out of respect for the Law? Sunday had no special relevance until he made it so. Yes, the prophecies mention three days… why? Christ is not beholden to the prophecies, they are beholden to him. A curious consideration, and unknowable.
What were the disciples thinking? The Twelve, the others? Years of their lives had been spent with the man now dead. They could not return home, for traveling was forbidden for the most part. So they stayed, their lives lost, dead even though still alive. Already Christ had died on this day, he had not yet risen. They didn’t know he would. He told them, but they didn’t understand.
How many cursed Christ on this day for being deceitful? How many felt really bad about it after he rose again?
We live in the middle of the three days of the Passion, the time between times, Christ has come, Christ will come again. Already, not yet. Hoped for realities which are not apparent, no longer slaves to sin though sinners indeed, free and not free, alive and not alive, strong and weak, hopeful and fearful, that is our state. Yes, keeping the eye on the end is what helps us through the now, transforming our perspective even in the present so as to anticipate the future, letting us see time beyond time while we walk through time.
But we are living in the Saturday, the day between a day and a day, in which we expect everything and feel the loss of everything. Christ has told us what to expect, but we don’t really understand or believe it… just look at our lives, our hearts.
Saturday is an awkward day, neither here nor there. And so, it is a day of rest.
For a lot of reasons Holy Saturday is my most precious religious holiday. It is the one which I live with and the one which suits my soul. This is the day in which I resonate with the meaning in a profound way. This is Holy Saturday. My whole life thus far is lived on this Saturday. Christ has died. May Christ be resurrected. May the peace of God come into our hearts, and help us wait patiently for the fullness of Christ to enter our world for all eternity. Amen and amen.
Holy Saturday
This has long been one of my favorite religious days. Because it is the one that makes sense to me. It is the one that fits with my life thus far. As I see new changes ahead, and, in some ways, begin to maybe even see Easter’s dawn, I think it right to remember what I’ve written in the past on this holy day.
Here’s one from 2004:
There is a slight haze in the sky, some stars shining through, many not. All is quiet, not a sound, odd for a holiday weekend. No wind, no movement. Perfectly still, the noise I make echoing through the silence.
I felt this a day of rest, and rested accordingly, going for a wonderful jog through the hills, enjoying the beauty of the day. My soul felt at ease, and I let it enjoy the feeling.
It is Saturday, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This day has more and more meaning to me as the years go by, some of which I’ve written about in other places, some of which still I reflect on.
This being a journal of my spirit and soul I think it’s good to say how much I identify with this day more than tomorrow or yesterday. I feel forgiven, I have no guilt, I do not feel the weight of my own sins. They have been released and I am a slave to nothing. And yet, I do not feel resurrected. The weight of life’s difficulties weighs on my soul, my doubts and confidence balance each other out, each gaining sway for their own time. I taste of new life, I do not dwell in new life. Much has begun, nothing is resolved. I live in utter faith that the work God has started in me will be finished, with wonderful results. There is no actual indication this is the case.
Indeed, with all of the pomp and celebration of Easter, I feel myself distant from it, not because I do not understand the significance of the day, I just wait for my own Easter, along with the ultimate Easter. Today is my day.
Because I’ve been saturated in the Christian world for so long I wonder if it is not just overexposure. I was born into the church, and have no memory of not being a Christian. Thus that transition is missing for me. So, the joy and celebration of Easter is something I taste, but have more contrived emotions in celebration than real excitement.
Of course I live the Easter life in part, the presence of the Holy Spirit in me is a result of Easter. Had Christ stayed or not risen, the Holy Spirit would not have been sent. So, that is a consideration.
But, too much of me now identifies with those dark words of Wesley and others, who miss God even as they seek him the most. It is Saturday, and all I have to do is wait, and pray, and continue to believe. Christ, we say tomorrow, has risen indeed. So too he rises in each of our lives. That is the wonder of Biblical prophecy and imagery, it means more than it means, though it does not mean less. Christ and Easter are the history, the depth of the theology of the Faith, and yet they still speak to us, meaning more than just what they meant 1,970 years ago.
The disciples sat together in someone’s house, weeping and remembering, hoping that something would happen, not yet fully without hope, still lost in the sudden change. The women were ready to go to the tomb as soon as it turned light, to do what they could, the next step they saw. That’s all I can do, the next step before me, whatever it is. For one day, I will be going about my tasks, and Easter will come, a power beyond me, changing all in an instant. He does make all things new, is making all things new.
It is Saturday, however, and all we have on this day is a promise. Such is our lives, such is my life. Praise be to the Three-in-One.
Good Friday
Good Friday
O my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one start show’d thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be sign
Of the true vine?Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour:
That thy distress through all may run,
And be my sun.Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sin may so.Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me, and fly away.Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.
~George Herbert
The High Calling
A good friend sent me this today and it very much was what I was needing to hear and be reminded about.
The High Calling
If God has called you to be truly like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility and put on you demands of obedience that sometimes will not allow you to follow other Christians. In many ways He will seem to let other good people do things He will not let you do.
Other Christians, and even ministers, who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull strings, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do these things. And if you attempt them, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you [deeply remorseful]. Others can brag about themselves, about their work, about their success, about their writing, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing; and if you begin bragging, He will lead you into some deep [humiliation] that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may only supply you daily, because he wants you to have something far better than gold – a helpless dependence on Him – that He may have the privilege of providing your needs daily out of the unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others be honored and keep you hidden away in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
God will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing. And then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, with jealous love, and rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasted time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.
So make up you mind that God is an infinite Sovereign who has a right to do as He pleases with His own and needs not explain to you a thousand things with may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.
God will take you at your word; and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let other people say and do many things you cannot do or say.
Settle it forever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes in ways that others are not disciplined.
Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Hold Spirit over your life, you will have found the [entrance hall] of heaven.
~Anonymous
placed in darkness
David, the king, was a man with blood on his hands. God himself told him that. And he was. The man was thrown into one war after another. Violence followed him all his life.
Yet he was one of the most honored men in the Bible. Even with all his sins he remains one of the key models of serving God. Because he was obedient. Because he loved God with all his being.
Solomon was a man of peace. God gave him no end of wisdom and no end of material blessings. And Solomon wasn’t near the man of God that David was.
It always seems like God should be pushing us to the place of peace and quiet. Only he doesn’t. The Bible is filled with violence, and attacks, and moments in which the person of God is put into a situation where there doesn’t seem to be a ‘holy’ response. Except that God has placed them there and the holy response is not the theologically ideal one but the one that is following God’s obedience.
We can feel so discouraged when in a place absolutely washed over with darkness. But we, and the Spirit in us, are light. There are places where the church has utterly failed to reach anymore, and the church as it is speaks hardly anything into lives of desperation and loss and frustration and despair. The American church is very good about ministering to the middle class.
But God still works among all people. He calls and he places people to be lights, often because of their own humility, and he uses them. Even if sometimes in the course of being there they might be asked to let go some of the ideal, that’s not separating them from God. Sometimes people choose to go to such places and among such people voluntarily. But the most effective are those who are among. Who have lost, and suffered, and pined, and despaired, and endured frustration and pain. These are the people who know, and from that knowing can speak the words of God to those who desperately need good news.
We can be a light in the midst of the darkness. Like King David. We feel the darkness and see it every day. We sometimes feel in the depth of our being why people don’t minister in the hidden places, why they don’t linger, why they give up, and why they say, “someone else.” We feel the conflict. But that very conflict and darkness is why God does place people, in the circumstances they are in, to be in places like that. It’s not the well that need a doctor, though most of the church are like Beverly Hills plastic surgeons–doing cosmetic work on the already well-blessed. It can be a special work of God to be in the darkness, among the sick, besides the lost.
It is where we are placed, sometimes in the place of our own darkness, where we are being obedient. And that is the trait that brought David so much blessing and so much of a close relationship with God. Joseph was thrown into prison for doing what was right. And while in prison he became a leader. The boy who had so many great dreams was cast into the dungeon. He lost his dreams and then began interpreting the dreams of others as he stayed with God, eventually rising out of prison with God to save Egypt and Israel from famine.
Walk at Dusk
I’ve changed the picture at the top of this page. It’s one of my favorite paintings, maybe my favorite. I remember about seven years ago going to the Getty Museum for the first time. By myself if I remember correctly. Just wanted some inspiration. I walked through the rooms and there was this small painting near the corner. It hit me. It reflected something deep within my soul. I stood and stared at it a while, not as much thinking about it as much as feeling its quiet energy.
It spoke to me, more than I knew at the time. And maybe it still does. Like a reminder. A direction. An encouragement.
I don’t really know the words to describe what exactly it was saying. But I thought I’d put it up as a regular reminder. Of course, I did add the title, and the appropriate corvids for the theme.
A Walk at Dusk by Caspar David Friedrich.
Feel free to try some words about it. Let me know how it strikes you.
discipline and contemplation
I’ve a wee article up over at Barclay Press, part of their ongoing series on personal devotions.
a prayer
Going through some old journals this afternoon and I ran across this prayer I wrote about 5 years ago. I was working at a church. Had lots of plans. God had different plans.
This prayer is still fitting.
May I walk in harmony. May I listen profoundly. May I see perceptively, hope unendingly, believe faithfully, move boldly, trust implicitly, love grandly, share selflessly, think wisely, act confidently, respond humbly, care transformingly, laugh contagiously. May I see Your face, know Your heart, speak Your words. Grant to me this day the bounty of Your presence again. Grant to me life.
