Psalms are for Praying - December 3
Today’s Reflection
I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
my heart teaches me, night after night.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.
—Psalm 16: 7-8
As a little girl, I had just one Bible for my entire childhood. It was a white, leatherbound volume of the King James Version that could be enclosed by a zipper with a cross-shaped silver pull. I took it for granted then, but as I write this now, I wonder why a book would have a zipper. To me, it just seemed something that set the Bible apart as different and special. Maybe it was to be keep its very thin, fragile pages safe from being ripped or torn? I guess I’ll never know. But in any case, that Bible was special to me, as I carried it each Sunday to and from the small Baptist church I attended down the street. We lived so close that we could walk to church.
At home, I kept my Bible on the desk or nightstand near my canopy bed. I have memories of looking up and praying to God as I was lying there before going to sleep each night. I imagined God was up there somewhere in the mysteriousness of whatever was beyond the canopy. I also remember that, besides trying to learn whatever “memory verses” we had been set to memorize by Sunday School or VBS teachers, I would also open my little white zippered KJV and read it on my own at home, usually at bedtime. For whatever reason, I was always drawn as a small child (elementary school age) to the Psalms. Maybe even then I was drawn to its poetry.
To me, the Psalms are the one part of the Bible that have always made the most sense. They capture a real person’s prayers to God—prayers of thankfulness, prayers of crying out in sadness, prayers of asking for direction—and as such, the Psalms reveal so much about what our relationship with God can be if we remain in consistent conversation with God through prayer, no matter what we may be going through in our lives.
Recently, I came across a version of the Psalms I had not yet encountered called Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness by Nan C. Merrill. She seeks to re-cast the spirit of each Psalm into words that make them perhaps more accessible to the prayer lives of people today. In particular, she emphasizes God as Love and Beloved by us. She writes, “To pray is to be transformed. We become One in the Silence with pray-ers from every country who are scattering seeds of love and light into the chaos; thus, we blanket the world with a web of peace. Just as light dispels darkness, fear cannot exist where Love abides…. May the prayers of all who read, pray, or sing the Psalms help awaken us to the Peace of the Beloved indwelling in every soul.”
Here is the Merrill’s recasting of Psalm 16, one of the Psalms appointed for this morning. I pray you will find it life-giving to pray these words “with heartfelt attention and intention” as you begin or end this day.
Becky+
Psalm 16 from Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness
Remain ever before me,
O Living Presence,
for in You am I safe.
You are my Beloved; in You
and through You
I can do all things.
I look to those who are at one
with You and learn
from them of Your ways;
My delight increases each time
I sense your Presence within me!
Songs of praise well up from my heart!
Love is my chosen food, my cup,
holding me in its power.
Where I have come from,
where’er I shall go,
Love is my birthright,
my true estate.
I bless the Counselor who guides my way;
in the night also does my heart instruct me.
I walk beside the Spirit of Truth;
I celebrate the Light.
I bask in The Oneness of All!
Thus my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
I shall not be afraid,
nor fall into the pit of despair;
For in Love’s presence I know fullness of joy.
You are my Beloved and,
in You will I live forever!
Questions for Self-Reflection
What lines or lines from this version of Psalm 16 resonate most with you this day? What scene from your life does this line of poetry and prayer bring to mind for you? Why?
Daily Challenge
For the remainder of Advent, consider making it your daily spiritual practice to pray the Psalms for each day out loud—whether as you begin the day, as a way to refocus on God at midday, or to close your day (or maybe even at each of these points throughout the day).