Let’s close out the work week with a psalm, hoping its words will enhance our weekend worship. (The link above will take you to the full psalm.)
Followers of Christ have a basic, biblically inspired vision and mission for their lives and churches, and vision and mission interact in this psalm.
When we speak of “vision,” we’re talking about how we believe events in heaven and earth will play out one day. In short, we see a future where the world will conform to the happy truth that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior.
In the words of Romans 14:11, which is quoting Isaiah 49:18, ” ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess and give praise to God.’ “
The vision naturally inspires us as we go about our day-to-day mission. We let the Holy Spirit work through us so new disciples of Christ are made. Implicit in all of this is our need to grow as disciples so we can be more effective in our work.
Psalm 96 brings out one particular aspect of vision and mission. In living them out, there is great joy.
We worship a loving, glorious God, and he wants to put a new song in our hearts!
Lord, where our vision has grown dim and we have strayed from our mission, forgive us, please. Give us new light and understanding so we may better serve your kingdom. Amen.
Our devotionals for Wednesday, Thursday and today are all from the 23rd Psalm, “A Psalm of David,” considered in small meditative bites.
Verse 5You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies.You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.
Remember a couple of days ago, when we meditated on contentment? The shepherd who cares for our needs will also fulfill our holy wants. There is great reward in following him!
It does not matter if the world sneers at the shepherd’s flock. The worldly people, even their leaders, will have to watch in envy as the sheep receive far more than the world could ever offer.
The humble, the poor in spirit, the ones counted as irrelevant—these people will prove to be the ultimate insiders. The contentment of the sheep will turn to deep satisfaction and even irrepressible joy.
The one to whom all honor and glory must be given will honor us as his own. We hear it in the language of feasting and anointing, the latter a practice we have largely lost. The point is, there will be a public celebration of those who stood with the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and we likely will be shocked at who are and are not among the honored.
And if God wants to pour oil over our heads, rejoice! Feasting and anointing are just the first of many eternal blessings to follow.
Verse 6Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life,and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
Now and forever. All that we’ve been promised as we’ve heard the 23rd Psalm these past few days lasts for now and forever.
In the “now,” we may not always feel we’re experiencing in full what is promised. We have to remember that the journey for the sheep can be a long one.
The world is a broken place. That’s why the shepherd needs his rod and staff. There are spiritual battles to be fought and rescues to be launched.
But we do have God’s goodness and unfailing love trailing us like a couple of sheepdogs, encouraging and guiding us. That’s enough for now.
And as astonishing as it is, we know where we are headed! Who ever heard of stinky sheep being allowed in the grand mansion of the master? The God we worship thinks it’s a good idea, though. He is determined to make us more than the wandering sinners we are.
The shepherd king gathers us, disciplines us and cleans us up, making us fit to be in the presence of royalty, forever.
Thank you, Lord, thank you. Thank you for the Great Shepherd who makes these promises possible. Thank you for what we do not deserve. Amen.
Our devotionals yesterday, today and tomorrow are all from the 23rd Psalm, “A Psalm of David,” considered in small meditative bites.
Verse 3bHe guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.
As his sheep, we follow his lead, behaving as the shepherd would have us behave. Sometimes the concept of Christian holiness is made to sound complicated, but it really is that simple.
We are known as his flock, and we do not want to embarrass him by wandering down paths not leading to eternity. For thousands of years, he has shown us his will through his word, recorded in the Holy Bible. This is how he tells us left or right, stop or go.
Yes, the noise of the world sometimes makes his call a little harder to discern, but if we take time to focus on Scripture in a thoughtful and prayerful way, we will know what to do.
And when we follow the right paths, people do notice. They are astonished when the harm they were expecting from us does not occur, or when they receive unexpected goodness.
And when they seek to know why we behave in such an unworldly way, we earn the right to tell them, “Because I stay in love with God—you can too!”
Verse 4Even when I walk through the darkest valley,I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.
Our shepherd is so loving, we can forget how strong he is. He has all the tools and weapons he needs to fend off the most terrifying threats.
The rod, a type of club worn at the belt for quick access, proves our shepherd’s willingness to go on offense when we are threatened. Evil will be crushed. The staff can be used with devastating effect in a fight, too. It also is a tool of rescue, capable of lifting lost sheep out of the most difficult circumstances.
This Sunday, Lord willing, I will preach on the 23rd Psalm at Holston View United Methodist Church. I want to invite you to spend the rest of our week meditating on this “Psalm of David.” To jolt our thought processes a little, I’m using a less-familiar translation, the New Living Translation.
These meditations are based on devotionals I wrote for Luminary UMC in April, during the early days of the pandemic continuing to affect us. If you want, you can split each day into two devotionals, one for morning and one for evening.
Verse 1The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.
What a beautiful opening. But is this what we really believe?
One of the most difficult mindsets to achieve in this life is contentment, the ability to say, “My needs are covered.” And as the psalmist is trying to tell us, there is but one place to find contentment.
By calling the Lord “shepherd,” we say we trust God to care for our needs. We declare that what he gives us will be enough.
We understand the folly of listening to other voices, worldly shepherds telling us, “It’s really better over here. Happiness is on my side of the fence.”
False shepherds call to us for their own selfish reasons. Perhaps they need our votes or they need us to consume for their own profit, regardless of whether our consumption is good for us. Follow them, and in the end we likely find ourselves used up and alone.
Verses 2-3aHe lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength.
Certainly, the shepherd urges us forward from time to time, for our own benefit and for the larger benefit of the kingdom. (Never forget, our shepherd is also a king!) Following him, we can grow tired. But there always is rest.
The need for contemplative rest—Sabbath—is built into the very fabric of the universe. And if we trust God’s plan, we can gain much from the times of rest we are offered.
There is sustenance in God’s word, as rich and spiritually nutritious to us as green meadows are to the sheep. By consuming what we find there, we grow. We also drink from the stream of life when we open ourselves to his grace, poured out through a variety of openings. Our prayers, our time in communion, and our fellowship with one another are just a few examples, and enough grace pours forth through these encounters to soak us thoroughly.
In the right cycle of service and rest, we grow spiritually stronger over time, even as our physical vigor fades. God always is willing to give us more than we have given. We simply must remember to stop and receive.
Lord, help me to recognize when you place opportunities for contentment and rest before me, and allow me to grow in my delight of you through the influence of your Spirit. Amen.
Psalm 144:1-2A psalm of David.
Praise the Lord, who is my rock.
He trains my hands for war
and gives my fingers skill for battle.
He is my loving ally and my fortress,
my tower of safety, my rescuer.
He is my shield, and I take refuge in him.
He makes the nations submit to me.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we should have a deep aversion to violence. Our savior and teacher had a lot to say about radical forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and forgiveness for enemies.
And yet, evil remains in the world. Since the days when the church and institutional power first began to blend, Christians have struggled with how to follow Jesus’ teachings when confronted with the potential for great violence.
There are two basic paths thoughtful Christians have promoted through the years. The first is pacifism, where Christians say violence is unacceptable under any circumstances. True Christian pacifists are relatively few in number, although that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong—I have enormous respect for the creative ways they will try to confront violence with nonviolent countermeasures.
The second involves something called Just War Theory. Essentially, war is never good, but sometimes it is necessary in a broken world. There are, however, principles that should never be violated in deciding to go to war or during its prosecution.
I pray there are no more wars in my lifetime for Americans to justify, but if one arises, we likely will hear a leader at some point describe the cause as “just.” He or she will be trying to convince the public that principles of a just war have been considered.
We should always be dubious, by the way. Just wars inherently should be rare events, far more rare than what we have experienced since the end of World War II.
By the way, some of these just war principles can be applied to the “when and how” of Christians individually defending themselves. It has been my experience that martial arts training will cause people to back into these ethical debates without realizing they’re touching on Just War Theory.
For most Christians, it is a reality that some will train their hands for war, trusting God to give their fingers skill for battle. Certainly, soldiers should train, as should our police and others willing to protect innocent lives.
We need to pray for those who train, asking that they also maintain their humanity and their connection to God. Indeed, let’s pray they feel guided by God if forced into action.
Simultaneously, we need to pray for political leaders who will not abuse how they make use of these willing warriors.
I look forward to the day when Jesus’ sword of truth has overcome all evil, and violence is part of a former world.
Lord, grant us creative solutions to ancient problems, and may we all learn to think of violent solutions as acts of last resort. Amen.
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Let’s continue our meditation on Psalm 19. Yesterday, we considered the first six verses.
After contemplating the heavens, the psalmist makes what initially seems like a sudden turn, talking about how God instructs us. In particular, he references the law given to the Israelites. The two subjects are more connected than we might initially think.
The order and beauty of the heavens partially reveal God. A fuller understanding of God’s nature is found in contemplating God’s law, the psalmist is saying.
Because of sin, we are too broken to intuit such truths on our own. We need a direct revelation from the mind of God, a conduit Scripture offers us every day.
Even then, we are not strong enough to remain aligned with God—to remain holy—unless God helps us. Thus, we hear the petition at the end of the psalm to be kept and cleansed from sins committed deliberately or unknowingly.
The psalmist did not know the details of how God ultimately would respond to this prayer, benefitting all of humanity, but we know. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross makes it possible for all people to be cleansed of sin.
When we believe in Jesus and the effectiveness of his sacrifice, God’s Holy Spirit rushes in to engage with us and strengthen us, if only we let him.
Lord, may the words from our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
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Let’s finish out the work week contemplating some key portions of Psalm 19. These words could easily inspire us for the weekend.
The first six verses speak of how God is revealed in the heavens above—what the psalmist would have seen as a mysterious but usually predictable dance of lights in the sky. As I’ve mentioned before, we now know so much more about the universe beyond earth, but simultaneously we have deepened the mystery as we find new questions to ask.
I encourage you to do something simple, particularly as the weather grows cooler and the night sky becomes more still and clear. Take time to look up. Maybe even go to a place where you can better see the brilliant show above, a place away from the electric lighting interfering with our view.
Simply revel in the wonder of it all. I will always remember a night in the Arizona desert many years ago, far from any towns. I was able to kick back and gaze upward on a cool, clear evening.
I saw the majesty of the night sky as the Israelites must have seen it on any clear night. The Milky Way looked like the backbone of the sky; Jupiter’s brightness was piercing.
The heavens don’t reveal God in full, of course, but they can restore a sense of wonder, which we need if we are to approach God like a child.
Lord, as we gaze upward, give us a sense of your presence and power, and help us translate all of that into a deeper appreciation of the revelations we receive here on earth. Amen.
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Psalm 78:1-4
O my people, listen to my instructions.
Open your ears to what I am saying,
for I will speak to you in a parable.
I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—
stories we have heard and known,
stories our ancestors handed down to us.
We will not hide these truths from our children;
we will tell the next generation
about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
about his power and his mighty wonders.
Biblical truth often is communicated in less-than-obvious ways. This piece of Psalm 78 reminds us of the power of stories and our need to wrestle with what we hear in them.
The psalmist says, “I will speak to you in parable.” Christians tend to associate “parable” with the stories Jesus told to reveal an astonishing truth. In today’s psalm, the word has a slightly different meaning, in that the psalmist is referencing historical stories passed from one generation to the next.
The underlying principle is the same, however. We should take those stories, turning them round and round and upside down. We should peer inside of them as deeply as we can. We meditate on them, we chew on them. Our goal is to discover something deeper about God and what God wants for his creation.
I get the sense that average Americans struggle with defining “truth” today. We confuse the search for truth with the acquisition of undisputed facts. As hard as it is these days to come up with an undisputed fact, it is still a much greater challenge to seek truth.
Searching for meaning in the stories of the Israelites and in the stories of Jesus is, I believe, the best way to fathom God and his mysterious love for very sinful humanity.
I can tell you God is merciful, but you’ll remember this truth better if you dwell on the story of the fall in Genesis. Focus in particular on the pause God takes while doling out punishment to show pity for the shivering, terrified, naked humans.
I can tell you God loves you and longs for you to return to him, but you’re going to better grasp how deeply God loves you if you spend significant time meditating on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Look at the story through the eyes of father, son and brother and consider what they feel and why.
I know, this involves us slowing down and truly absorbing a story, a skill we’re losing rapidly in our modern cultural rush. But if you want to deepen your ability to search for truth in Bible stories, I can recommend a couple of books to get you started.
Fairly Simple: Any of the “Parables from the Backside” books by J. Ellsworth Kalas. Dr. Kalas was one of my preaching professors, and he was the master of shifting to an unusual perspective within a familiar story so we can see truth in a new way.
A little more challenging: Henri J.M. Nouwen’s “Return of the Prodigal Son.” Nouwen offers his meditations on a Rembrandt painting depicting the moment the son returns home. This book is considered a modern Christian classic.
Whatever age you are, whatever education you may have, there’s more to be found in the Bible.
Lord, as we explore what you have revealed to us through stories in your holy word, may we find joy, excitement and a deeper sense of purpose. And give us the opportunity to pass on these truths to a new generation. Amen.
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Psalm 107:28-30 (NRSV)
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out from their distress;
he made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad because they had quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
In yesterday’s devotional, I explored how to breathe during prayer, particularly when we find ourselves anxious. Today, I’m going to teach you a particular visualization technique to enhance your connection with God.
Put the two techniques together, and you have a kind of meditative prayer, something a lot of people in our culture don’t practice regularly. Our other, more familiar ways of praying—where we speak our praises, thanks and petitions to God, perhaps focusing on Scripture or a devotional as part of the process—remain critically important to our prayer lives. You may find, however, that meditative prayer techniques are particularly helpful in developing a sense of God’s constant presence.
There are uncountable ways to enter a state of meditative prayer. This is just one I like. I do not remember where I first learned it.
Imagine yourself sitting (or standing or lying, depending on your preferred posture) at the bottom of a deep, clear pool of water. Here’s the good news: God has granted you the ability to breathe comfortably and freely while there. Remember to breathe as discussed yesterday.
If this were a class in Zen meditation, someone might tell you to empty your mind. We’re doing the opposite. We want to be filled with God, and only with God.
As you begin, it helps to think of a word representing what you seek in that holy relationship. I’ve heard people make all sorts of choices: “peace,” “love,” “forgiveness” or “discernment,” for example. I’ve even heard people choose “Jesus” as their word, apparently as they tried to better fathom what it means to be in a personal relationship with God through Christ.
Go ahead and accept that worries and random thoughts will intrude on this time. We’re not going to fight them. Instead, take hold of them, examine them for a brief moment, and then release them, allowing them to float to the surface, far above you. Say your chosen word as part of the next exhale, and settle back into experiencing God.
That’s the technique. Simple, huh?
By the way, the more you do this, the longer you will spend in this state before deciding to surface. In just a few tries, you may have a meditative prayer session where you are surprised at how long you’ve been “under”—half an hour or even an hour might feel like 15 or 20 minutes.
What’s important is that you find yourself deeply aware of God’s presence.
Lord, thank you for the way you meet us in the midst of storms and in quiet places. Amen.
In the 1987 movie “Roxanne,” Chris, the newly arrived fireman, has yet to meet the department chief, C.D. Bales. He has been warned, however, that the chief’s nose is, well, unusual, and that C.D. is a little sensitive about the subject.
And then they meet. Chris is mesmerized; all he can do is stare in shocked fascination, following every movement of this huge proboscis. “It’s hypnotic, isn’t it?” the chief finally asks.
“It’s huge! It’s enormous! It’s gigantic!” Chris responds. “I mean, they said it was big, but I didn’t expect it to be big!”
Although C.D. does joke at one point about his nose influencing the tides, noses and celestial bodies are very different things. But when I consider Psalm 8, I have a reaction a little like Chris’ as I consider the night sky and its moon and stars.
In the day the psalm was written, those who peered into the dark using only their naked eyes were astounded by what they saw—dazzling, inexplicable pin pricks of light, some coursing across the center of the sky like a river of milk, with a bright, shape-shifting orb as the dominant feature. And as they paused to imagine God making it all, they felt overwhelmed.
They did have one slight advantage over us. They had clear desert night skies with no artificial lights, a rare experience for most of us looking toward the stars now. But as we consider the sky, we have a huge advantage over them, rockets and telescopes of all kinds, some floating in space. Human feet have even trodden the moon.
What we see is in many ways far better understood than ever. Science has explained much. But simultaneously, as we better sense creation’s vastness, we also realize the scale of space and time is simply beyond full human comprehension.
Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, this photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a tiny patch of sky inside the constellation Fornax. You could easily cover this patch of sky with the tip of your pinky finger held at arm’s length. The lights are galaxies, each made up of billions of stars. The image at full resolution contains about 5,500 galaxies.
When they said it was big, we didn’t expect it to be big!
Faced with all this, some people give up on the idea of God. I simply become more intrigued. The precision, power and beauty of the universe combine so as to trigger every possible human emotion, even when the tale is dumbed down to an article suitable for a non-scientist like me.
We seem to have been created in part to appreciate God’s handiwork, and whenever we think we’re starting to get used to its intricacy, we see a little deeper, or we find something else needing explaining.
I am glad we are made in God’s image, tiny, poor reflections that we might be. We at least are able to scratch the surface of what God knows, appreciating our creator’s magnificence more with each discovery.
As the psalm says in its own ancient way, the universe is vast, but at the same time, we also believe its maker has taken a direct, loving interest in us. Perhaps God has done so repeatedly with other beings scattered across his vast life machine—the idea intrigues me. But what’s immediately important is we know he is in relationship with us now.
We’re on quite a ride, with enough scenery in heaven and earth to keep us mesmerized for eternity. Thanks be to Jesus Christ, who makes eternal life, understanding and awe possible!
Lord, thank you for science, technology and curiosity; may they always provide new ways to view your majesty and dominion over all things. Amen.
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