Someone else was having a bad day, so I introduced her to Psalm 77:
My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud;
My voice rises to God, and He will hear me.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;
In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness;
My soul refused to be comforted.
When I remember God, then I am disturbed;
When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah.
You have held my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I have considered the days of old,
The years of long ago.
I will remember my song in the night;
I will meditate with my heart,
And my spirit ponders:
Will the Lord reject forever?
And will He never be favorable again?
Has His lovingkindness ceased forever?
Has His promise come to an end forever?
Has God forgotten to be gracious,
Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah.
Then I said, "It is my grief,
That the right hand of the Most High has changed."
I shall remember the deeds of the LORD;
Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all Your work
And muse on Your deeds.
Your way, O God, is holy;
What god is great like our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
You have made known Your strength among the peoples.
You have by Your power redeemed Your people,
The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
The waters saw You, O God;
The waters saw You, they were in anguish;
The deeps also trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
The skies gave forth a sound;
Your arrows flashed here and there.
The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind;
The lightnings lit up the world;
The earth trembled and shook.
Your way was in the sea
And Your paths in the mighty waters,
And Your footprints may not be known.
You led Your people like a flock
By the hand of Moses and Aaron.
She didn't even recognize it as from the bible but it was perfect for her, for this moment in her life. I told her I would teach her to pray the Psalter. Bonhoeffer's treastise on Psalms is already on its way to her house!
Perhaps it was fitting that I fought it out with the website at work to make a slew of changes. DreamWeaver and I have a love/hate relationship. It loves to vex me. I hate to open the program.
Wavering between fatigue and frustration, I called Pastor. He was not there, but I poured out the things with which I had been hit anyway. Tonight, I caught up with him and he offered solutions and comfort and a hymn. He sang a hymn I have been wanting to learn:
Entrust Your Days and Burdens
Entrust your days and burdens
To God's most loving hand;
He cares for you while ruling
The sky, the sea, the land.
For He who guides the tempests
Along their thund'rous ways
Will find for you a pathway
And guide you all your days.
Rely on God your Savior
And find your life secure.
Make His work your foundation
That your work may endure.
No anxious thought, no worry
No self tormenting care
Can win your Father's favor;
His heart is moved by prayer.
Take heart, have hope, my spirit,
And do not be dismayed;
God helps in every trial
And makes you unafraid.
Await His time with patience
Through darkest hours of night
Until the sun you hoped for
Delights your eager sight.
Leave all to His direction;
His wisdom rules for you
In ways to rouse your wonder
At all His love can do.
Soon He, his promise keeping,
With wonder working pow'rs
Will banish from your spirit
What gave you troubled hours.
O blessed heir of heaven,
You'll hear the song resound
Of endless jubilation
When you with life are crowned.
In your right hand your maker
Will place the victor's palm
And you will thank Him gladly
With heaven's joyful psalm.
Our hands and feet, Lord strengthen;
With joy our spirits bless
Until we see the ending
Of all our life's distress.
And so throughout our lifetime
Keep us within Your care
And at our end then bring us
To heav'n to praise You there.
(LSB 754) At first I hesitated when he offered to sing this one because he said that he would be singing it to another tune. Apparently the tune is a difficult one, even for a life-long Lutheran. I should have trusted him. I hemmed and hawed a bit, but ultimately encouraged him to stick with his first choice. The tune he chose is one of my favorites! It goes with The Bridegroom Soon Will Call Us (514)
I admitted to Pastor that I sometimes read the hymnal like a book and have poured over all the hymns labeled Hope and Comfort. A Myrtle section to be sure.
What I savor about this hymn is that it teaches me, reminding me of how much God cares for us and how He does not expect us to do anything but rest in Him. After such a gift, the author bestows further riches by leaving me with a prayer in the last verse. A prayer!
When the audio clip arrived in my inbox, Pastor also sent me the Lord's Prayer as it is sung in the Divine Service Three Liturgy. Another prayer!
So much have I learned about the Lord's Prayer. So much and I have not scratched the surface.
Every other Saturday, I am having another woman from church join me in my lessoning. I offered for us to start again at the beginning of Part III of the Book of Concord. I have been waiting so impatiently to get to the fifth petition and a few later ones, but the offer was genuine. Her choice, instead, was to accept my offer to do recordings for the introduction and the first four petitions, along with my commentaries, so that she could catch up. There was the possibility that she might start this Saturday rather than next, so I spent Tuesday evening doing the 11 recordings (my commentary on the second petition was horrible so I made a recording of Pastor's In Touch eNewletter that covered Thy kingdom come).
Doing so was great for me to have such rich teaching all together in one sitting. Ah, there is good stuff in Part III. Well, there is good stuff all over, but do you ever really think about what you are praying in the Lord's Prayer? Really think about it?
As Pastor was singing (yes, I asked him to sing it rather than read it) the Lord's Prayer in the mini-Divine service we had before bible study last night so I could have the Lord's Supper, I wanted him to stop and slow down. As much as the fragrance of the wine was calling me, I wanted him to stop and wait, to allow the lessons racing through my mind to fill my prayer.
Pastor has told me that Luther would spend several hours praying the Lord's Prayer. Petition by petition, he would reflect on their meaning and pray for the people in his life and the world around him according to each petition. When he told me this, I admit I thought, what a nice idea...but how would you do that with the Lord's Prayer? I had read through Part III several times, but I had missed most of it, thinking more about the distress I have felt about prayer than what was filling my ears.
Were I to comment on that fact, Pastor would tell me it wasn't time for me to understand. I would barely hide rolling my eyes at him in response. Maybe I did need to discover the joy, the utter balm that is praying the Psalter before I could understand what I was reading. But I do know now, at least in part, why Luther would do so. He would not be racing through its recitation. He would not be even reciting it. No, Luther would be praying each word...because he understands that each word is for us, not because they are the perfect words to pray about God, but that they are the perfect words to pray about ourselves.
SIGH.
Anyway, there was not one audio file in my inbox, but two. Shall I admit how often I have played both tonight or just let you guess?
While listening to Pastor sing the Lord's Prayer, hitting pause as often as I hit repeat, I started thinking about the reading from the Treasury of Daily Prayer from January 5th that is from a church father:
How mighty is the grace of water, in the sight of God and His Christ, for the confirmation of Baptism! Never is Christ without water: He who is Himself baptized in water (Matthew 3:13-17); inaugurates in water the first display of His power when invited to the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11); in His preaching He invites the thirsty to His own eternal water (John 7:37-38; John 4:6ff); He approves, among the works of charity, the cup of water offered to a poor child (Matthew 10:42); He gathered His strength at a well (John 4:6); walks over the water (Matthew 14:22ff); calms the waves (Mark 4:39); and serves His disciples with washing by water (John 13:5). Even His Passion bears witness to the power of Baptism's waters, for while He was being handed over tot he cross, water intervened and was a witness against Pilate's hands (Matthew 27:24). And when He is wounded, after His death, water bursts forth from His side that had been pierced with the soldier's lance (John 19:34)!
~Tertullian
Wow! I had never thought much about all that water, though I think that this list should include John 4:13-19 about the water that truly quenches our thirst:
Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."
How I savor the moments when the readings give me pause, trouble my waters!
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