It's just a collection of vapor. We call it rain - sometimes a storm. But it's just a gathering of steam, an unquestioning retreat of moisture. Each molecule has its part to play in an unending dance. I wish I could be so light and be unswervingly obedient. Psalm 148
I saunter up to reception, pushing past the smaller guests. "One table, please." It's an order that I've framed as a request. It's absurd because I'm supposed to be taking orders and waiting tables today - not here acting like a customer. How did I get exclusive rights to God's favor? Is it my affiliations that got him to side so heavily with me? Do I have the lion's share of blessings, or do I have the Lion of Judah as my mediator and counsel? Do I hope in his benefits or benefit from his hope? Psalm 147
The golden creek bed waves to me. I scale the asphalt runoff to find the water teeming with playful creatures and pebbles. I sense the opportunity to build a great pool for them. I dam up the stream just before the culvert. The upstream swells. Now fish are darting in the flood. Crayfish and salamanders dance. But I have no thoughts for those downstream - as I choke them dry. Psalm 146
Slouching in front of the pantry, staring at the tangled packages filled with nothing, replaced with hope or negligence. This is the moment where God's compassion fills deeply. But this is also the precipice. Foul feelings shimmer and lure me to the edge of a thick resentment. The guardrails are missing. The sign- post is a reminder of warning. But the breakers sound beautiful in their peerless allure to console. How weak the heart. How brave the child who snatches me from my betrayal and wraps me in complete trust. How stupid I am to forget God's heart. Psalm 145
If I feel planted when so many are denied rooting, am I a Hebrew, disenfranchised in the desert night or Egyptian born? Am I hiding in caves or hunting? A Galilean, or am I slaughtering innocents? God, rally the time when neither will be true of any! Psalm 144
There's a creeping haze when you're lost. It sets in softly at first. "Shouldn't there be a trail marker?" "I thought the landmark was here." Then panic is a wakened child. Frantic bees in your rib-cage signal to your infant terrors. The earth's beauty is lost too. In the swirling of land and leaf and sky, twilight is hostile - an enemy you battle with. The canopy will hide stars. For me, as the darkness crept in, my nerves steeled against the night. My self-trust was a lost compass. It was then that I saw lights. Psalm 143
I've been underneath the soil - darkness so blinding my ears muffled in response. I was surrounded by friends. My dad, less than an arm's length, but presence was lost. The imagination wants to invent monsters and false images to fear. But at some point, a living person touches your hand, and you are not alone. Psalm 142
Sometimes I sit in The Church of Nothingood and let the choir soak my spirit in terrible lies. It's a splendid mess of modern dissonant, voices - sent to tell me how to breathe and live out loud. But I have a friend with a firm hand, who wounds me when I won't leave and loves me more than the people on the program - still singing false. Psalm 141
Whose jobs are they coming for anyway? I was under the impression that jobs (good and bad) came from the Provider. You think they're the pestilential ones? What if "the wicked" were closer to home? What if you found them on your speed-dial, on your Sunday School roster or voting record? Or what if you were wicked, unwittingly but complicit still in God's least favorite injustices - the dreadful things that rile his soul with rage and send his feet to the tribunal? The only rescue is the Righteous One who is enthroned to out-grace us all. Though He is also enthroned for justice, which overturns, providing glory. Psalm 140
It can be terrifying, when someone knows what you're thinking. A judging look casts shadows on your conscientious, sunbathed emotions: unspoken, sheer in the unwanted backlighting. But there is a grace that fills when it finds character bankrupt. Psalm 139
