Psalm 46 begins with some liturgical instructions, one of which is unclear. Here is the superscription to the Psalm, a sort of post-it note tacked onto the sheet music:
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A song.
The Psalm itself will divide thematically this way:
Natural Disasters: But God is a strong refuge (vv. 1-3)
Human Violence and Tragedies: But God rules over violence (vv. 4-7)
Be Still and Know: Despite both of the above, God is God; God is with us (vv. 8-11)
11 Psalms are attributed to the Sons of Korah. Korah himself is not a major Biblical figure, but he and his descendants were Levites, involved in musical leadership. This portion of the inscription is clear enough—it’s “a song.”
Alamoth, a Hebrew word that goes untranslated in the 1984 NIV, means “young women.” Alamoth could have been just the name of a musical setting—like singing the doxology to the tune of Old 100th. Or Alamoth could have meant that this song was to be sung by young women—by sopranos—and so it is high-pitched. (HT: P. C. Craigie)
Or Alamoth could have just been how the choirmaster preferred to take his apple pie.
(Sorry.)
But—back to business—the fact that this is a song, and marked as a song, with details about how to sing it, is significant.
Here you have a people confronted with natural disasters, human violence, and tragedies… and their worship leaders call them in response to sing!
Lord, open our lips. And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.
I preached on Psalm 46 this last Sunday, from which the above is adapted. This is the final of three posts this week about that Psalm. I wrote about it here and here, too.
You may have read Bonhoeffer on the Sermon on the Mount, but did you know that he has a compelling and inspiring set of published lectures of Genesis 1-3, too?
for whom the terms “God spoke” and “it became so” are identical.
In Creation and Fall this idea reaches fuller expression:
That God creates by speaking means that in God the thought, the name, and the work are in their created reality one. What we must understand, therefore, is that the word does not have ‘effects’; instead, God’s word is already the work. What in us breaks hopelessly asunder–the word of command and what takes place–is for God indissolubly one. With God the imperative is the indicative.
This month Logos Bible Software offers Creation and Fall for free. I haven’t read the whole thing, but what I have read has helped even familiar chapters of Scripture come alive in new ways. Highly recommended.
You can find Creation and Fall for Logos here. As part of the same promotion, Logos is also offering Bonhoeffer’s Fiction from Tegel Prisonfor $0.99.
If you’re not already set up with Logos, feel free to message me here, and I’ll tell you how to do it.
On September 16, 2001, I was planning to deliver my first ever message as a vocational youth minister. It would have been about Philippians 3.
I had just taken a position at an Episcopal church in Illinois as part-time youth minister. In my excitement to start ministering among youth and families, I invited all the parents of youth to come to our first youth worship service that Sunday. In the weeks leading up to that service I worked hard on my sermon, which was going to be about Paul’s pressing on toward the goal and striving to know Jesus Christ more and more. I hoped this would be a central theme in my new ministry.
On Monday, September 10, 2001, I went for a long run and mapped out the outline to my talk. I came back from my run refreshed and ready to go; I couldn’t wait to begin that Sunday.
The next morning, as I walked to a youth ministry class, my friend Michael asked me if I had heard the news. What news, I asked? He told me about a plane, commandeered by terrorists, crashing into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, taking the lives of thousands of people. When I arrived at class, my professor turned on the TV as our session was set to begin and just said, “I’m going to stay here and watch the news about this; feel free to stay if you like; feel free to go home if you need to.”
Maybe it goes without saying, but I didn’t preach to the youth and their families that following Sunday about Philippians. Instead, I turned to Psalm 46, and tried to convey some sense of hope, because of the strength we can find in God, even when awful things happen.
To try to do that I used a collection of projected images (that we had been seeing in the news all week anyway), with the text of Psalm 46, bit-by-bit, underneath, next to, or on top of the images.
Here is a .pdf version (unedited since then) of our worship focus that morning. Though it’s been almost 13 years since that Sunday, I’ve found myself–still–turning to this Psalm in the wake of tragic events.
I preached on Psalm 46 this last Sunday, from which the above is adapted. See also here.
As I have read and preached on some Psalms this summer, I’ve appreciated the importance of trying to practice intercultural sensitivity in reading the Bible (and in all of life).
I am working on a course on intercultural counseling this summer, one purpose of which has been to help build intercultural competence and sensitivity.
The readings, lectures, and class discussions have reminded me of the important truth that reading and interpreting the Bible is an exercise–whether we realize it or not–in intercultural relations.
Intercultural Sensitivity=Better Bible Reading
The culture, values, and practices, for instance, of ancient Israel differ from those of 21st century North America in a number of ways. If I read a passage with only an awareness of the cultural values I carry with me, I very well may miss an important truth or robust reading of a text. Or I may map a “truth” or value judgment onto the text that the author didn’t necessarily intend to be there.(I’m not discounting the potential value of so-called reader-response criticism, but I am suggesting we seek to avoid a monocultural or culturally hegemonic interpretation of a text, if possible.)
In a 2008 article for Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care (“Relational Spirituality and Transformation: Risking Intimacy and Alterity”), Steven J. Sandage, Mary L. Jensen, and Daniel Jass write:
Since hermeneutical understanding is always intercultural and contextual, cultural self-awareness is a prerequisite to responsibly interpreting Scripture and spiritual experience.
I mentioned here how the idea of intercultural sensitivity helped me read Psalm 23 in a fuller way. The same thing happened as I prepared to preach on Psalm 46 this week. I got a little extra help this time from a Bible atlas I’ve been reading.
Psalm 46: God Is Our Refuge
Psalm 46 begins:
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
How should we understand the scenario the Sons of Korah (writers of this Psalm) describe?
The sons of Korah don’t just paint a picture of tragic events befalling God’s people—it’s the complete disintegration of all of life that is the dominant metaphor in these verses. A number of commentators point out here that the effective merging of the land (mountains) and waters (sea) harken back to the pre-creation state of chaos that existed before God separated the land from the waters, bringing order to life. The sons of Korah, then, describe a sort of uncreation.
But even in the midst of an envisioned chaos and uncreation of the world (!), “God is our refuge and strength.”
Verse 2 says, “though the earth give way,” or, though the land give way. Here is where an interculturally aware read of the Psalm helps it to come alive even more profoundly. (The below was inspired, in part, by Paul H. Wright’s Rose Then And Now Bible Map Atlas® With Biblical Background And Culture.)
Life for Israel: Location, Location, Location
Before there was such a thing as real estate, life for Israel already was location, location, location.
The topography or shape of the land had a lot to do with whether a given area would be suitable for habitation. Mountains, in particular, provided a sort of natural buffer of protection against enemies… a hiding place to run to, if need be. Water, of course, was necessary for life and the production of crops.
Mountains in Edom (photo: Garo Nalbandian, from Carta’s Sacred Bridge atlas)
The congregation of Israelites who would sing this Psalm understood their identity as intricately tied to the land. The land—which God had given them—was part and parcel of his covenant relationship with them. It was part of his blessing, a sign of his love. If we don’t have this land, how can we really call ourselves God’s people? This is still a live question for many.
Yet even if we were to lose this fundamental aspect of our identity, the Psalm declares, even if the world were to be uncreated and fall back into chaos, “we will not fear.”
The congregation can still say—can still sing, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
Given how important land was to the people of Israel and the construction of their collectivistic identity, this is an amazing affirmation of trust in God.
Intercultural Insight from a Bible Atlas
Paul H. Wright’s cultural awareness and sensitivity is present from the very first chapter (“The Landed Context of the Biblical Story”) of his biographically-arranged atlas:
To start, it is perhaps appropriate to define a few aspects of location that have impacted living conditions in the lands of the Bible over time. The building blocks of biblical geography include the following….
He lists topography, climate, and available resources. He goes on:
The particular mix of elements such as these plays a significant role in determining whether any given plot of ground can support permanent settlements and how large and well-established these might have become, or if the land is better suited for herding or desert lifestyles.
Here’s the intercultural piece, which I so appreciated:
Specific geographical realities have also helped to shape cultural values and norms that defined individual societies. For instance, protocols of cooperation, hospitality and defense that functioned well in arid, shepherding societies in biblical times developed differently than did those that attained to urban centers located in fertile areas, or to sailors who frequented foreign ports-of-call. And aspects of geography gave rise to specific images that biblical writers used to describe God and the people of ancient Israel.
Understanding the value of land to the people singing Psalm 46–it was an essential component of their identity and experience of God’s love for them!–makes the affirmation of trust in this Psalm even more remarkable.
Though the sons of Korah envision a scenario in which their land is gone–having slipped into the ocean–they call on the congregation to praise God still.
The above is adapted from a portion of a sermon I preached yesterday. Rose Publishing has sent me the Wright atlas for review purposes. A full review is forthcoming. You can find the atlas in the following places: Rose Publishing, Amazon (affiliate link), Carta (as Greatness, Grace, and Glory: Carta’s Atlas of Biblical Biography), and Eisenbrauns (same title as Carta).
My two-year-old gave me an unexpected opportunity yesterday to practice what I just preached Sunday. I noted in my sermon that I had been understanding Psalm 23 as a “counter-circumstantial prayer of defiance,” a “subversive prayer when you compare it to what you see around you.”
I mentioned some potential circumstances which make us feel far from the idyllic pastoral imagery of the Psalm, and then suggested that those are some of the best times to (defiantly) pray Psalm 23:
When you hear about wars and rumors of wars, say this Psalm.
When your best friend gets sick, say this Psalm.
When someone in your family grieves you by their seeming lack of care for you, say this Psalm.
When you don’t know what the next year of your life holds, say this Psalm.
An instance I didn’t think to include was:
When your two-year-old daughter draws with permanent marker all over the brand-new cork floor that the church graciously put in last year in the parsonage kitchen… say this Psalm.
When I noticed the damage, this image is about the opposite of how I was feeling:
Image Credit: LifeintheHolyLand.com (Todd Bolen), used with permission
I was feeling more like this:
For at least 10 minutes as I frantically scrubbed, I didn’t even remember there was a Psalm 23, let alone think to say it.
But then I took a step back (by God’s grace) and began to quietly say–through gritted teeth:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul….
And when my gracious and patient wife came home, she gently reminded me of the “magic sponge” we have under the sink that takes permanent marker off of everything. Within minutes, the green marker drawing on the floor was gone. Gone. The cork floor is good as new.
True, there are much darker valleys in life to walk through, but I think sometimes in parenting those little mini-valleys of frustration and exasperation can add up pretty quickly. And for us parents, they can be the regular “stuff” of our everyday existence. We need good Psalms to pray for the big valleys, and good Psalms to pray for the little valleys.
For those moments–should my two-year-old again somehow elude my watch like she has been so eager to do lately–I will try again (and again) to remember to “say this Psalm.”
This October Fortress Press will publish a new–and the final–volume of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (English edition). This is Volume 17: Index and Supplementary Materials.
Here is the description from Fortress Press:
The completion of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, the definitive English translation of the Critical Edition, represents a milestone in theological scholarship. This wonderful series is a translation from the German editions of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke. The product of over twenty years of dedicated labor, the comprehensive and thoroughly-annotated sixteen-volume series will be the essential resource that generations of scholars will rely upon to understand the life and work of this seminal thinker in the wider frame of twentieth-century thought and history.
Now, the editorial team has offered an essential companion to the entire series in the form of an index volume.
Here are the book’s contents. It is more than just an index, per se:
General Editor’s Foreword to the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition—Victoria J. Barnett
The Translation of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition: An Overview—Victoria J. Barnett
The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition: A Retrospective—Clifford J. Green
The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke: Afterword to the German Edition—Wolfgang Huber
Part I: Additional Letters and Documents
Part II: Comprehensive Chronology and Master List of Documents
1. Chronology 1906–1945
2. Master List of Documents for DBWE 8–17
Part III: Master Indexes
1. Master Index of Scriptural References
2. Master Index of Names
3. Master Index of Subjects
New to Bonhoeffer? I collected some reflections on his writings after spending much of Lent reading him. All my Bonhoeffer posts are gathered here. I’m currently reading Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible (DBWE 5) and will post a review some time this summer.
As for DBWE 17, here is its product page at Fortress Press. It’s also here at Amazon.
My understanding is that the “Additional Letters and Documents” (Part I) have been published elsewhere, but not necessarily in English, and not in the German Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke. So DBWE 17 will include material that is new to the Works series, some of it appearing in English for the first time anywhere.
The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series in English is described here, available for purchase (hardcover) through Fortress Press here. Fortress Press tells me that once DBWE 17 is published, there will be a discounted purchase rate available for the whole set for a short time this fall.
This summer I’ve been taking a course on multicultural counseling. Here I offer some interaction with and reflection on A Peaceable Psychology, pictured at left.
Key Points of Learning: Agreements and Concerns
Before reading A Peaceable Psychology, I hadn’t really thought about counseling and therapy as “political” acts. And yet Alvin Dueck and Kevin Reimer warn well against the illusion that the therapist can somehow counsel apolitically, aculturally, amorally, and areligiously. One of the key, unifying ideas of the book is: “Civility includes learning and validating the language of the ethno-religious client. It is polite to defer to the meaning framework of a client.”
I found this to be a helpful way of framing the quest for diversity competence among therapists and pastors. Dueck and Reimer do go even farther than saying this kind of psychotherapy is polite; they suggest that to counsel in this way is to be like Jesus, especially when therapist and client can inhabit the same place of suffering together.
Although Dueck and Reimer have a healthy (and hearty!) reluctance toward philosophical foundationalism as such, they see the work and life and love of Jesus as foundational to a peaceable psychology. This is especially evident in their view of the importance of the atonement.
I found myself in agreement with Dueck and Reimer when they wrote:
The reconciling atonement of Christ is not spiritual alone but contains physical, psychological, and social dimensions of human brokenness. The suffering God is a beckoning God, who in Christ offers the potential of a new beginning. Consequently, a peaceable psychology is an incarnational event whereupon the invisible spiritual reality of God’s grace is attached to and bound up in the visible life of both the victim and the offender.
They go on, “Atonement is God’s welcoming of the enemy, of the other. It is an invitation to new life, to freedom from sin. This is the basis of a peaceable psychology.”
When considering various theological theories of the atonement, I find myself convinced by an all-of-the-above approach. (How could we limit the efficacy of the atonement by proffering just one theory as to what it was and how it happened?) The work and suffering of Jesus, they suggest, is to transform the therapist-client relationship. “If Juanita were our client,” they ask, “would her suffering fully impact us?”
This, however, also was a potential point of disagreement I had with the authors. Or at least I had questions and wanted to add qualifications. To be sure, the idea of the “kenotic therapist” makes sense to me—especially as a pastor. But the following expression of kenotic therapy was too much, at least for me: “Indeed, I am held hostage by my clients’ suffering. Their face places an ethical claim on me because as a fellow human I am systemically responsible for their suffering.”
While I can agree about “an ethical claim,” I’m not sure being “held hostage” is the most useful metaphor. How many clients will—or can—a therapist allow to hold him hostage before he feels imprisoned in an unhealthy and stultifying way? I wish the authors had spoken more to the point with some practical suggestions and caveats.
Implications for Pastoral Care
Dueck and Reimer say, “We fear that the American psychologist who assumes a level playing field for the linguistic comprehension of ‘self’ has already begun a subtle process of imposition upon the client.”
This is a valuable reminder to me as a minister. I simply cannot make assumptions about the cultural backgrounds of congregants. Further, there is value in this approach (of not assuming “a level playing field for the linguistic comprehension of ‘self’”) that has already—just this last week—had practical import and payoff in my biblical hermeneutics for preaching.
Yesterday I preached on Psalm 23. Due in large part to the idea Dueck and Reimer articulate above, namely, that constructions of self are culturally conditioned and informed, I was able to observe the following about Psalm 23.
David uses the first person singular pronoun throughout the Psalm. God is the shepherd of each individual who would follow him.
This may seem slightly unremarkable to us. We live in a North American society that already tends toward individualism. Our cultural construction of the self tends to be individually-focused.
The culture in which David found himself was much more communally-oriented. …A person’s sense of self was constructed and informed and shaped in a communal context.
So it’s at least a little remarkable, in the larger context of Hebrew worshiping society, that David begins–the Lord is MY shepherd.
This really drove home the point in another article we read in class: “Since hermeneutical understanding is always intercultural and contextual, cultural self-awareness is a prerequisite to responsibly interpreting Scripture and spiritual experience” (Sandage, Jensen, and Jass).
I also do and will find it useful for my own pastoring to consider that “a peaceable therapist recognizes that healing is best conducted ethnically, in the client’s mother tongue and in his or her local culture.”
Of course no therapist can be already conversant in the mother tongue of every cultural or religious tradition. But Dueck and Reimer realize that, and are suggesting more of an “ad hoc” approach anyway: “A peaceable therapist is a linguist; he or she recognizes differences between languages and honors them by learning them.”
May God help us–therapists and ministers alike–so to do!
Find A Peaceable Pscyhology at Amazon here. Baker/Brazos has its product page here, with an excerpt (including Table of Contents) here. No review copy–I bought this one!
Psalm 23 is a Psalm of Trust. A Declaration of Confidence in God.
The imagery and tone of the Psalm are peaceful: “green pastures,” “quiet waters,” a restored soul, the promise of God’s presence even when death and darkness are near. The LORD is my shepherd: he provides, he guides, he restores, he is with his sheep, and he comforts.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures.” With God as my comforting shepherd, there is time to rest. Time to stop. Time to be still.
Image Credit: LifeintheHolyLand.com (Todd Bolen), used with permission
Typically a shepherd leads sheep to a pasture where they can graze. The sheep still do work; the shepherd does the leading but not necessarily the feeding. As the Psalm progresses, God as comforting shepherd becomes welcoming host, who sets out a whole banquet for his flock.
Image Credit: LifeintheHolyLand.com (Todd Bolen), used with permission
Psalm 23: It Just Got Personal
Psalm 23 is intensely personal. It’s a prayer of an individual to God; a song from one soul, who recognizes that the ruling king of the universe has taken the time to lead him to a restful spot to get a drink… to rest.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul….
David uses the first person singular pronoun throughout the Psalm. God is the shepherd of each individual who would follow him.
This may seem slightly unremarkable to us. We live in a North American society that already tends toward individualism. Our cultural construction of the self tends to be individually-focused.
The culture in which David found himself was much more communally-oriented. The sins of an individual and the corporate sins of the community were not always distinguished. A person’s sense of self was constructed and informed and shaped in a communal context.
Identity for a Hebrew man or woman had much more to do with being a part of a chosen and called-out community. A chosen people, plural.
Even in other Psalms, when God is prayed to as shepherd, there’s a sense in which he’s understood as a shepherd of a whole people:
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
So it’s at least a little remarkable, in the larger context of Hebrew worshiping society, that David begins–the Lord is MY shepherd.
The idea of God as personal shepherd is consistent with Jesus’ interpretation of himself as shepherd. You remember the Christlike image of the shepherd who–even though he has 100 sheep–will stop and go find the one who goes missing.
So it really is okay, and probably even closest to the original intent of this Psalm, to put your own name in there as you read it.
Psalm 23 as Prayer of Defiance
Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading this Psalm through the lens of the news this week, but I’m beginning more and more to see Psalm 23 not only as an affirmation of trust and confidence in God, but also as a counter-circumstantial prayer of defiance. It’s a subversive prayer when you compare it to what you see around you.
Verse 4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” David seems to just take it as a given that life contains dark and death-filled valleys.
I saw in a bookstore yesterday a little book called 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About. It’s a work of satire, mostly, though not all of it is. Here are a few of the things it listed:
Exaggerated vows of love
Abysses of regret
Tipping over backward in your chair
The misery of goldfish
Heel pain caused by flip-flops
But we don’t need a book to think of all the ways in which life is full of dark valleys.
You’ve been in a dark valley before. Maybe you’re in one now. It can be a valley of darkness and shadows that you’ve found yourself in due to no choice of your own: some hurt or frustration someone has caused you; prayers that continue to go unanswered in the way you’d like to see answered; illness and physical ailment; unexpected and sudden grief.
You could be in a valley of darkness and shadows that is more of your own making, too. Maybe your whole life doesn’t feel like a valley, but maybe you’re aware of your “shadow side” that you wouldn’t dare bring to church, that part or those parts of you that you don’t want anyone to see. Maybe you’ve looked inside and seen something in your heart that—it pains you to see—doesn’t please God.
Or, to see some “valleys of the shadow of death,” you could just pay attention to global events this week. 4 children in Gaza—cousins—playing at the beach and shot dead from the ocean. An Israeli ground invasion into the Gaza Strip. Another Malaysian Airline plane crash full of passengers, this one shot down by a ground to air missile as it was flying over Ukraine.
And if you really want to lose some faith in humanity, you probably have already heard that that airplane had something like 100 of the world’s top HIV/Aids researchers on their way to an international Aids conference.
So, yes, there are plenty of valleys of the shadow of death and darkness that we walk through.
And yet, even though—“even though I walk through through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” “Even though,” David says, in a hope-filled prayer of defiance.
There’s an old story of a young preacher who was preaching in a rural church in Louisiana during the depression. This church had just one lightbulb coming down from the ceiling that gave light to the whole sanctuary. As Pastor Taylor was preaching, the electricity went out. He was a newish preacher and didn’t know what to do in the now-dark sanctuary. But an elderly deacon in the church, from the back of the room, shouted, “Preach on, preacher! We can still see Jesus in the dark.”
“We can still see Jesus in the dark.”
For whatever reason, when I hear “shepherd,” there’s part of me that thinks of a humble, young boy (or girl) walking sheep through beautiful country fields on a quiet, sunny day. And that’s right. Leading your sheep to serenity is part and parcel of what it means to be a shepherd.
But there’s this fascinating passage of Scripture, Micah 5, which says:
When the Assyrian invades our land
and marches through our fortresses,
we will raise against him seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men.
Maybe it’s just me, but reading about a coming invasion by an Assyrian superpower, my first reaction is: What kind of a country would send their shepherds out to battle?
But Micah is drawing on a rich tradition in the Scripture—especially in the Old Testament—of using “shepherd” imagery to describe kings, to describe commanders, to describe strong and mighty leaders.
When Micah says “shepherd,” he is talking about a ruling king who goes to battle for his people.
David, as a ruler himself, surely had this aspect of shepherding in mind. The readers and prayers and singers of this Psalm surely saw not just a shepherd to comfort me, not just a host to welcome me, but God as a ruler to protect me. This ruler won’t do away with all of life’s dark valleys—not yet, anyway—but he will be with me while I walk through them.
The Lord is my shepherd, and his rod and his staff—weapons of protection in the hands of a skilled shepherd—fend off that which would attack us.
When Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd, we see his gentleness in his willingness to lay down his life for the sheep, and we see his ferocity, his power, his authority over all things when he says, “No one can snatch them out of my hand.”
Even the presence of enemies in verse 5 cannot keep this ruling shepherd from playing banquet host, setting out a feast for the ones he loves.
So good shepherds are not to be trifled with, because they protect their flock. They walk with them through darkness. The Good Shepherd is a ruling king, and he keeps our modern-day enemies—shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, the accusations of others, stress, hatred… he keeps our modern-day enemies at bay. Even though life is full of valleys of the shadow of death, tens of thousands of things to potentially be miserable about, Jesus the Good Shepherd is a ruling king who STILL is sovereign over all he has made, no matter how fouled up it gets.
“We can still see Jesus in the dark.”
So—when you’re riddled with doubt and self-loathing, or just questioning your worth? Say this Psalm.
When you hear about wars and rumors of wars, say this Psalm.
When your best friend gets sick, say this Psalm.
When someone in your family grieves you by their seeming lack of care for you, say this Psalm.
When you don’t know what the next year of your life holds, say this Psalm.
When you have to do the hard work of reconciling with someone you have hurt or that has hurt you, say this Psalm.
When you can’t pay your mortgage on time, say this Psalm.
When you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, say this Psalm.
When you get scared of the dark, say this Psalm.
As a holy act of defiance against the darkness,
as an affirmation of trust and confidence in Jesus,
when you come up on one of life’s dark valleys, get ready to walk through….and say:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.
The above is adapted from the sermon I preached today. Scripture quotations are from the 1984 NIV. See my other sermons gathered here, including the first Psalm of Summer sermon here.
Words on the Word 