For the beauty of the earth, / for the glory of the skies,
It’s a dreary day. Been raining off and on this week, and hot and humid, my windows are fogging up in the house, not even talking about the car. And stepping out of the air conditioning makes my glasses fog up too. Sigh. Summer, they call it. Great. It’s hard some days to acknowledge the goodness of this life. It is hard to see beyond your own discomfort and to look at all the blessings that shower down upon us like the summer rain that comes from nowhere to drench the landscape. Dreary, dreary day.
/ For the love which from our birth / over and around us lies;
It’s a lonely kind of feeling. No one’s out, so the world looks empty. The familiar seems new and foreign. It’s easy to question decisions and choices, to wonder if the path you’ve taken - or found yourself on - is really going to get you anywhere, besides a dead end or cul-de-sac.
/ Lord of all, to thee we raise / this our hymn of grateful praise.
And you begin to question whether anyone is there. Anyone who cares, anyone who knows you or wants to. Anyone worthy of praise. A dreary day. We all get them, regardless of what the sun might be doing. The kind of days when nothing seems good, nothing lifts our hearts, when there is no beauty in the world. The kind of days that make praying difficult.
For the joy of ear and eye, / for the heart and mind's delight, / for the mystic harmony, / linking sense to sound and sight; / Lord of all, to thee we raise / this our hymn of grateful praise.
We are in the midst of our prayer series. We talked about the why of praying in week one - to maintain the connection between us and God. We talked about the how of praying in week two - modeled on the Lord’s Prayer. New week we’ll talk about what happens when we pray - stay tuned for that, you won’t want to miss it. But this week it’s a little different. A little harder to pin down. Not so much nuts and bolts, how tos or what fors. No, this week it is part of the “mystic harmony” that hymn speaks of. It’s about the mood of our prayers. The emotions with which we pray. How do you feel about your prayer life? Not how effective or how disciplined, but just feeling. How do you feel when you pray?
I know, an odd question. Maybe not even that important. Yet, we are emotional creatures, often driven by feelings rather than will. So, if we are indeed to surrender all to God, maybe we need to surrender our emotions too. And what better place to examine our emotions before God than looking to the Psalms. A panoply of emotional outpourings. Nothing is held back in those poems, hymns of praise and lament, of confidence and of fear, of faith and doubt.
Psalm 27:1-14 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh-- my adversaries and foes-- they shall stumble and fall. 3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.
4 One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. 5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. 6 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the LORD.
7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me! 8 "Come," my heart says, "seek his face!" Your face, LORD, do I seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation! 10 If my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me up. 11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. 12 Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.
13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!
You can’t help but wonder if David was bi-polar. He’s on top of the world one moment, and in the pit in the next. He’s confident here and there and shouting for help, imagining the worst in the next. I think that maybe there is something wrong with him. He obviously suffers from being human. And yet, and this is what makes David a man after God’s own heart, he brings it all to the throne of God. David doesn’t hold back, doesn’t hide his emotions, doesn’t wait until he is in a proper frame of mind before he offers up his praises to God. He wouldn’t know a proper frame of mind if it invited him to dinner and a movie. He just brings himself. All of himself. The only self he’s got. The self of certainty and the self of doubt. The self he’s proud of and the self he ought to be embarrassed about. It’s all prayer material. All worship attitude. All of it. All of him.
How do you feel about your prayer life? Not , do you think you do it well, or do you think you do it enough. But how to you feel while you pray? Do you bring your feelings into it? That’s the question of the day. Like David do you bring your whole self into the prayer moment? Offer up whatever is churning around inside of you, not even sure what it is or what’s going on in there, but it is real, it is raw, it is you. All you. The you that is alive. Hurting sometimes, joyous sometimes, but alive. It is the living part of you that God wants you to bring to worship, to offer up in prayer. You life, on a platter. Hand it over and see what happens to it.
David knows what he wants to have happen. And he shares it with us. Verse four. One thing I asked, one thing I seek after. One thing. Which is actually three things. Or three parts of the one thing. I want, he says, to live in God’s house all the time. Every day. Take me now Lord! Is this a death wish? A going to heaven hope? No, its about being alive. I want to live every day with God guiding me, with God claiming me, with the eyes of God and the hope of God and the confidence of God at work in me.
And if I live alive, David claims there are things that happen in me. My perspective changes. My eyes are opened. I can behold the beauty of the Lord. No, it isn’t God’s Instagram account with all God’s selfies posted hourly. But being able to see beyond the dreariness of the day and find beauty in spite of the darkness. To dwell in the house of the Lord is to see the beauty of creation, to see the glory of every face created in the image of God. It is to acknowledge God’s presence in everything and the preciousness of the world in which we live.
As wonderful as beholding the beauty is, there is more, David claims. Dwelling in the house of the Lord all your days also allows you to inquire. Oh, good. What? Exactly! It’s about questions. It’s about knowledge. Dwelling in the house of the Lord is a reminder that there is always more to learn. It keeps us from the thinking that we know all we need to know. It opens us up to possibilities. To more, to learn and to grow.
What a beautiful day, right? Even on our worst days, there is beauty. That’s what our faith says. Even when we can’t see it, be trust that it is there. And the more we worship, the more we pray, the more we are able to see that beauty, So, bring your whole self, your real self, your hurting and rejoicing self and lay it at the feet of the One who gives us life. The One who loves us at our most unlovable and makes us worthy by grace. Behold the beauty of the Lord. Even in you.
For thyself, best Gift Divine, / to the world so freely given, / for that great, great love of thine, / peace on earth, and joy in heaven: / Lord of all, to thee we raise / this our hymn of grateful praise.
Shalom,
Derek
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