“Now and again the psalmists pray for judgment on their enemies, but sometimes they catch themselves in the process and examine their own souls, lest their cry for divine vengeance get completely out of hand. In Psalm 139, the writer has just asked God to send judgment on his enemies; but without pausing for a …
“Most of us have heard someone say regretfully of a friendship, “I never heard him say he was sorry.” Even the most earnest friendship or the most ecstatic marriage needs these two words, because even though one may not have caused hurt intentionally, all of us in our humanness sometimes speak an unfortunate word or …
Longing to Pray – Day 24 “It isn’t far from the place of wonder to the place of witness. If we believe deeply in someone, we can hardly refrain from testifying to the beauty we find in him or her. Without a doubt, the favorite psalm is Psalm 23… and this is a psalm of …
Longing to Pray – Day 23 “The writers of the psalms are fully satisfied that there is no one to be compared to the Lord God. They may have their times when they question and complain, but when the vote comes in, there is no negative. The God of Israel is great, and greatly to …
Longing to Pray – Day 22 “our repentance should go beyond superficial thinking, so we consider why we have sinned, and what it is in us that inclines toward particular failings. With such realization we equip ourselves to walk more uprightly in the future, and to guard against carelessly falling into the same destructive patterns.” …
Longing to Pray – Day 21 “In this matter of petitioning God by specific names, I confess a simple faith, but one that is significant enough to me that I dare to recommend it to you. As I go about each day, numbers of persons come to mind. Some names appear logically – I see …
Longing to Pray – Day 20 “When the psalmist repents, he isn’t content to make a blanket request for forgiveness. Rahter, he uses three different words for sin and three specific words for the kind of action he wants taken to his sins (“Blot out my transgressions./Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,/and cleanse me from …
Longing to Pray – Day 19 “A lazy relationship will be taken over by generalities. A great relationship is marked by the specific. You’ve been told that the good is the enemy of the best and that the pretty is the enemy of the beautiful. Let me add that the general is the enemy of …
Longing to Pray – Day 18 “The secret of exuberance is involvement. If we are to enjoy exuberance, we have to engage ourselves. The more nearly complete the engagement, the greater the level of fulfillment and of exuberance. And here’s the rub for most of us religious folk. We engage in too much of our …
Longing to Pray – Day 17 Writing about the author of Psalm 96, “All of his vocabulary seems stunted and insufficient for the wonder he feels, so he yearns for a new way to declare the glory of God. He wants much more than new words, a fresh melody, or a different set of musical …