August 17 — Psalm 108

“My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make melody. Awake, my soul! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn. I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth. Give victory with your right hand, and answer me, so that those whom you love may be rescued. God has promised in his sanctuary: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem, and portion out the Vale of Succoth. Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet; Judah is my scepter. Moab is my washbasin; on Edom I hurl my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.” Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies. O grant us help against the foe, for human help is worthless. With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.”

Awake, my soul!

Our five cats love to sleep — I have a cartoon that speaks to the life of my cats so well — it says “20 hours of sleeping, 4 hours of awesomeness.” I am not a good sleeper, but I wish I could learn to sleep in — like my cats. We know how important good sleep is — and getting plenty of that good sleep. According to the “Sleep Matters Club”, “The average person spends about 26 years sleeping in their life which equates to 9,490 days or 227,760 hours. Surprisingly, we also spend 7 years trying to get to sleep. That’s 33 years or 12,045 days spent in bed!”

So, it is important to get good sleep — but it is even more important, especially for our faith, to be awake in the world. To be awake means that we choose to get out from the comfort of our lives — those areas that try to coax us to more sleep — or sleepiness — when we should be awake, praising G-d, and living active faith lives.

Much like getting out of bed to face the world on its own terms, we are called to live G-dly lives, and to love for G-d, because our G-d lives for us.

Perhaps this is something that the Psalms teach us better than anything: they cover all the topics within the human experience — singing, praising, sleeping, waking, praying, worshipping — they teach us that we should see G-d within those moments too.

Let us pray:

O God, your steadfast love is wider than all the universe and your faithfulness greater than the heights of heaven. Give us your help against sin and every evil. Waken our voices and instruments to sound your praise before the world in thanksgiving for your goodness; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Amen.