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.

August 16 — Psalm 107

“O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; he led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. For he satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things. Some sat in darkness and in gloom, prisoners in misery and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. Their hearts were bowed down with hard labor; they fell down, with no one to help. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress; he brought them out of darkness and gloom, and broke their bonds asunder. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. For he shatters the doors of bronze, and cuts in two the bars of iron.” (Verses 1-16)

“Some sat in darkness and in gloom, prisoners in misery and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God… Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress”

We often are the ones who place ourselves in the darkness of our times, in the prisons of our minds, and into the gloom that settles upon our souls. It does not always take an outside force to oppress us — we are pretty good at doing that to ourselves as well.

I am reminded of the short story by E. A. Poe titled “Silence — A Fable”. In this short story, a man sits upon a rock while surrounded by desolation — and he sits there with his head upon his hand, not moved by the scene presented to him — as more and more chaos surrounds him and tries to scare him away. Finally when the man is presented with silence, he flees.

This short story highlights what I like to call the “irony of silence”. While silence is akin to peace, it can also be a source of angst for many people. There are an abundance of apps for “white noise” so people can sleep at night — but shouldn’t we ache for more silence, and peace?

We have been watching a lot of chaos all around us — throughout our country — throughout our world — and we too shudder at the desolation that seems to creep ever so close to so many. But too many of us are also unmoved by the chaos — we just seem to be sitting watching with a numb resolve.

What happens to us when we finally choose to cry out to G-d for deliverance? Will our G-d come to us with that “still, small, voice” to say “Peace be with you — do not doubt, just believe?”

Let us pray:

O God, you are bread to the hungry, deliverance to the captive, healing to the sick, and harbor to every soul in peril. Gather the wanderers from every corner of the world into the community of your mercy and grace, that we may eternally praise you for our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.