waiting in silence

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

How long will you assail a person,
will you batter your victim, all of you,
as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence.
They take pleasure in falsehood;
they bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse. Selah

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my deliverance and my honor;
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah

Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no confidence in extortion,
and set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.

Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

Psalm 62; NRSVue

We live in a noisy, restless (see CEB) world. Humans act as if everything depends on them, as if they’re in the place of God. Lip service might be given to God, but at best only to help them achieve their lofty goal. When it comes right down to it, they function as their own god, with maybe some help from God on the side, when and if they need it.

Those of us who have faith would not imagine ourselves to be atheists. But what if when all is said and done, we largely function as practical atheists? We act as if all depends on us. This takes place on an individual level in our individualistic western mindset, and also on other levels. If we just have it together and do the right thing, if we just get the right people on city council, if we vote for the right candidates on the local, state and national levels, if we elect the right president. And if we don’t? Then all “goes to hell in a handbasket.”

Scripture, certainly the psalms takes seriously what we do. As the psalm ends, “For you repay to all according to their work.” But where does our confidence lie? In the US, we have money with the words, “In God we trust.” But actions can belie that, words blanketed out with the panicked thoughts that unless we get it right, unless we do it, unless we get the right people elected, unless we have the right ones on court, etc., then we’ll be lost. Nothing about God in that, even if they say it’s all about God. Force by laws or even physical force is not out of the equation. How much of God is really in this?

But what about the rest of us who despise such religious undertaking? Are we any better? After all, we might well imagine that we have to battle back, that we have to do all we can, get the right people elected, get the right laws in place, hopefully better laws and policies. And yet, for what good might be in such thoughts, we act as if it all depends on us and how the election turns out. For all practical purposes God is either out of the picture, or there just to help us succeed.

But what if for starters at the beginning we drop all of that? What if we commit to wait on God in silence ourselves and with others? What if we’re committed to not only letting God get a word in edgewise now and then, but have the floor at all times, the first and the last word, and everything in between?

For the psalmist here, as well as in many other psalms, it’s not like life isn’t challenging and even threatening at times. Even so, the call is to wait in silence, to wait, to do so in silence, our hope only in God. To pour out our hearts to God. Not wavering from the commitment to act in nothing more than God’s will and all God provides.

life is not for the faint of heart: the need for courage

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?

When evildoers assail me
to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
they shall stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
yet I will be confident.

One thing I asked of the LORD;
this I seek:
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.

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.

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.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
Your face, LORD, do I seek.
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!
If my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will take me up.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!

Psalm 27; NRSVue

Pressed all over the pages of Scripture, and evident in life is the basic need for courage. Life is not for the faint hearted.

The psalmist takes courage in God in the midst of dangers along with the difficulties, disappointments, and even disasters that life can bring. This is all good news. We can and must take courage in God in spite of things, not because of them. Our confidence should not be and ultimately is not in our circumstances. There’s not a one of us who likes difficulties. None of us sign up for that. On the other hand, simply to live as a human on this planet, in civilization as it is, in many places is to face severe challenge. Though people can live privileged lives beyond the imagination of most of us, so that they may be shielded from much of this, even they cannot escape death, nor unexpected trouble.

We have to move on, no matter what, look squarely on what is in our face, and in the midst of all of that, find our help in God. We do so as we can see from Psalm 27, as those entirely devoted to God, seeking God’s face. We do it in service of something much bigger than ourselves.

Therefore we’re to wait for God, be strong and take courage, “be stouthearted,” a nice rendering in the NABRE. Believing that we will indeed see God’s goodness in the land of the living, for the good of all.

burial: a part of our faith

I am one who has seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath;
he has driven and brought me
into darkness without any light;
against me alone he turns his hand,
again and again, all day long.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;
he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;
he has made me sit in darkness
like the dead of long ago.

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape;
he has put heavy chains on me;
though I call and cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer;
he has blocked my ways with hewn stones;
he has made my paths crooked.

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; NRSVue

Phil Yoder recently gave the most thought-provoking message I’ve ever heard on the issue of what it means to give up on one’s hopes and dreams maybe even in the midst of living them out, all of that “buried” so that by and by something better can emerge. That’s my own description of it, but if you do nothing more, stop and listen to this.

During Holy Week, Saturday is the day when Jesus is buried, and all the hopes and dreams of his followers buried with him. All hope was gone, or at least in their experience it certainly seemed so. Jesus had told them on at least three occasions that he would suffer, be killed, and on the third day rise again. But they simply didn’t understand what he was saying. It made no sense to them at all in their understanding of Scripture and the scheme of things.

A lot of Christians seem to look at Holy Week as Easter week, just skipping over everything prior to get to Jesus’s resurrection. Others will include the other days, especially Good Friday and maybe Maundy Thursday as well, but Holy Saturday is just a footnote. But carefully considering everything in that story as well as in the rest of Scripture like in the passage above from Lamentations, we do much better to stop on this Holy Saturday and dwell on and in this day.

Something mighty and most wonderful was going to happen, but it was hidden from the disciples. We do well to stay here. In the Christian faith death is always followed by burial and only then comes resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Romans 6:4). And as noted above, a necessary metaphorical burial of sorts is a part of this life. All the hopes and dreams in us, every one of them important, but necessarily submerged into the darkness of death, with the promise that the full good and life of such will emerge and break forth.

seeing life from the point of view of the down and out

On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city;
he sets up walls and bulwarks as a safeguard.
Open the gates,
so that the righteous nation that maintains faithfulness
may enter in.
Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace,
in peace because they trust in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for in the LORD God
you have an everlasting rock.
For he has brought low
the inhabitants of the height;
the lofty city he lays low.
He lays it low to the ground,
casts it to the dust.
The foot tramples it,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.

Isaiah 26:1-6; NRSVue

Isaiah 26 is another of those great “chapters” in Scripture. There’s a lot in it, and to really understand one “verse” or part of it, we need to consider the whole.

I grew up in a Mennonite church through most of the time of the Civil Rights Movement. It had what I might call a veneer of popular evangelicalism. For example, our church bulletin would let us know when the Billy Graham Crusade was to be on television. For what I think are complicated reasons, I left the Mennonite tradition, becoming evangelical, which I was for decades. All through that time I never heard much of anything and certainly no emphasis on Scripture prioritizing the down and out: the poor, the oppressed and marginalized. One would not guess that God favors the poor and those who are victims. So it’s no wonder that I see evangelical friends posting stuff that is anti-immigrant even suggesting violence towards such.

I wonder, given all the continued disparity and suffering on the earth. “How long, God, how long?” We have seen improvement over decades, but much if not all of that is in danger of being lost due to human greed for power, I don’t know what else to call it, along with consumption and what essentially amounts to a rape of the planet. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” There’s no escape from the results of that.

But we can’t just focus on that. Just reading the section above can help assure us that we in Christ are in the movement of God for the poor, the oppressed, those despised and considered inferior. When I say movement, it sounds like a human thing, but I’m referring to the movement of God. But yes, we’re caught up in that, active in it. Just it says later in this passage:

O LORD, may you ordain peace for us,
for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us.

Isaiah 26:12; NRSVue

We not only need to work at trying to understand the perspective and see from the point of view of the down and out, but we also need to see the priority this has in Scripture. Until we do, we’ll be largely missing a key and important part of the gospel of Christ.

Advent: being watchful

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Luke 12:35-40; NRSVue

the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event

Data from Oxford Languages

Advent is in part the awaiting of the celebration of Jesus’s first coming, but also carries with it the awaiting of his return, commonly known as the Second Coming. There is so much to look forward to in all of that as we learn especially from the prophets as well as the latter part of Revelation. The just and good judgment to come and final, complete salvation. All of that is good, and we do well to think through what that means both in the future and for our witness now, since the dawn of the new Day has already broken into the darkness.

What can get all but lost in all of this is just who we’re waiting for. It is not just for blessing and release from what really amounts to a cursed existence for so many on earth due largely to injustice. This is all meant to be personal. We’re not only waiting for something great, but for someone. In the words of Jesus: for our master and friend.

There are many things we have to deal with. If we question that, all we have to do is open our Bibles, begin to read and keep reading. Yes, it’s personal, about our relationship, fellowship, communion together and with God. But there are many details in the mix. And all of that is important.

But just so we don’t lose sight of the greatest point of all. We are to anticipate and wait for a person. Jesus himself, God in him. Having already come as a newborn baby. And to return as the triumphant Lamb. We await Jesus himself. What better way to do that, than to seek to cultivate the closeness with him now? Especially together, since he after all is present in us as his body on earth.

take hold of everything available to you

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is blind, suffering from eye disease, forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you.

2 Peter 1:3-11; NRSVue

There are few things more frustrating to me than a passive religion and faith. That being said, I was faithfully instructed just recently from no less than Walter Brueggemann in my reading that there is a form of what I might call passiveness risking cheap grace necessary in waiting on God (The Prophetic Imagination). This is not a self-help endeavor, something we can work up and do ourselves. God is in it or it’s nothing at all in terms of what it’s laid out to be in Scripture. So yes, there’s that vitally important aspect of waiting through faith and prayer. But there’s also the equally important aspect we see in this passage from 2 Peter. God has given us all we need in Christ, yes. But we must take hold of it, period.

Notice what we’re to “support [our] faith with.” Excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. We can say this is both in individual as well as communal terms. In the world in which this letter was written, community was a part of life and frankly a priority that it isn’t in our current day. They were together in a kind of mutual dependence which became a mutual grounding. Nowadays for those who profess faith in Christ, this is at best hit and mostly miss. People find a “good” church to get a good sermon, maybe some other good things on the side (like the worship music they like, and of course coffee, me included in the latter) and then go home. Maybe the church will press for small groups. And if it’s a small enough church, there might be some visiting afterwards. But by and large we just don’t have that same ethos or experience today. It’s much more like living in an individual existence, at the most tied together in families, but individualism so dominant that it’s mostly about everyone doing their own thing.

I say all that with the danger of losing sight of the wonderful list of what we’re to support our faith with, because we’re understandably coming to a place for many in which church is becoming more and more just a nice option. And ironically, where churches that are in danger of no longer being true churches (Revelation 2-3) are given to a community united in something other than what Peter was talking about here.

We can’t do this only by ourselves. Not. For example, how do we support our faith with mutual affection, or for that matter, love by ourselves? And given that, we can see the other things on the list: excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance and godliness at least as much in communal as in individual terms.

We have to take hold of all that God gives us in Christ. That’s the only way we’re going to make it. And not only make it as in surviving, but actually coming to thrive and in the end gain the grand entrance Peter refers to above.

slow down, breathe deeply

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!

Psalm 27:13-14; NRSVue

Psalm 27 is one of those classic psalms and well worth reading not only for context, but just because of all it says (click link). That said, it’s also good to focus on one part of it at times.

We’re told that we not only need to believe in God’s goodness, but that God’s goodness will become evident and real in life, “in the land of the living.” We can be so down in the mouth about life at times for this and that reason. But faith in God means something other than that. Of course, it doesn’t mean that all is hunky dory all the time, or that we don’t face reality. Again, read the psalm in its entirety. But it does mean that no matter what we face, even experience, whatever we are up against, we can believe that God is present, that God knows, and that God in God’s goodness will act.

For me, this means I need to take deep breaths and slow down. Sometimes I can go about what I do, even praying, not thinking that much of it, that yes, surely God honors it, but I can hurry through things. But I have found it helpful to purposefully slow down, take deep breaths, and do the same things slowly. We might consider that a way of waiting on God. After all, without God’s blessing all is for naught. But we believe in God’s goodness and in that goodness that God will act.

So let’s keep taking the deep breaths, slowing down and waiting and relying on (NET) God.

needed perspective: God’s sovereignty means God is working and has the last word

Habakkuk is a prophet and book which I think especially resonates today. Israel of old was guilty and so were the Babylonians and Assyrians which were used by God to bring judgment. Habakkuk saw wrong on every side and was bewildered. It’s not like he hid and lived in a monastic kind of existence oblivious to “the news.” And he asked the hard questions to God.

This is not a read to give one answers so they can become settled in a day when locally, in states, in the nation, in other nations, in international affairs there is such turmoil and upheaval. Instead it’s a word to help us lift our perspective beyond the muddle and mess of the present to a higher hand which will prevail. And our response to that.

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous;
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

Look at the nations and see!
Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
that you would not believe if you were told.
For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
to seize dwellings not their own.
Dread and fearsome are they;
their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more menacing than wolves at dusk;
their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence,
with faces pressing forward;
they gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress
and heap up earth to take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind;
they transgress and become guilty;
their own might is their god!

Are you not from of old,
O LORD my God, my Holy One?
You shall not die.
O LORD, you have marked them for judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous
and are silent when the wicked swallow
those more righteous than they?
You have made people like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.

He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his seine,
so he rejoices and exults.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his seine,
for by them his portion is lavish,
and his food is rich.
Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and destroying nations without mercy?

I will stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
Then the LORD answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faithfulness.
Moreover, wealth is treacherous;
the arrogant do not endure.
They open their throats wide as Sheol;
like Death they never have enough.
They gather all nations for themselves
and collect all peoples as their own.

Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,

“Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!”
How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?
Will not your own creditors suddenly rise
and those who make you tremble wake up?
Then you will be plunder for them.
Because you have plundered many nations,
all who survive of the peoples shall plunder you—
because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who live in them.

“Alas for you who get evil gain for your house,
setting your nest on high
to be safe from the reach of harm!”
You have devised shame for your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.
The very stones will cry out from the wall,
and the rafter will respond from the woodwork.

“Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed
and found a city on iniquity!”
Is it not from the LORD of hosts
that peoples labor only to feed the flames
and nations weary themselves for nothing?
But the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
as the waters cover the sea.

“Alas for you who make your neighbors drink,
pouring out your wrath until they are drunk,
in order to gaze on their nakedness!”
You will be sated with contempt instead of glory.
Drink, you yourself, and stagger!
The cup in the LORD’s right hand
will come around to you,
and shame will come upon your glory!
For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you;
the destruction of the animals will terrify you—
because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who live in them.

What use is an idol
once its maker has shaped it—
a cast image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in what has been made,
though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!
Alas for you who say to the wood, “Wake up!”
to silent stone, “Rouse yourself!”
Can it teach?
See, it is gold and silver plated,
and there is no breath in it at all.

But the LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth keep silence before him!

A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk according to Shigionoth.

O LORD, I have heard of your renown,
and I stand in awe, O LORD, of your work.
In our own time revive it;
in our own time make it known;
in wrath may you remember mercy.
God came from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah
His glory covered the heavens,
and the earth was full of his praise.
The brightness was like the sun;
rays came forth from his hand,
where his power lay hidden.
Before him went pestilence,
and plague followed close behind.
He stopped and shook the earth;
he looked and made the nations tremble.
The eternal mountains were shattered;
along his ancient pathways
the everlasting hills sank low.
I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction;
the tent curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
Was your wrath against the rivers, O LORD,
or your anger against the rivers
or your rage against the sea,
when you drove your horses,
your chariots to victory?
You brandished your naked bow;
sated were the arrows at your command. Selah
You split the earth with rivers.
The mountains saw you and writhed;
a torrent of water swept by;
the deep gave forth its voice.
The sun raised high its hands;
the moon stood still in its exalted place,
at the light of your arrows speeding by,
at the gleam of your flashing spear.
In fury you marched on the earth;
in anger you trampled nations.
You came forth to save your people,
to save your anointed.
You crushed the head of the wicked house,
laying it bare from foundation to roof. Selah
You pierced with their own arrows the head of his warriors,
who came like a whirlwind to scatter us,
gloating as if ready to devour the poor who were in hiding.
You trampled the sea with your horses,
churning the mighty waters.

I hear, and I tremble within;
my lips quiver at the sound.
Rottenness enters into my bones,
and my steps tremble beneath me.
I wait quietly for the day of calamity
to come upon the people who attack us.

Though the fig tree does not blossom
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer
and makes me tread upon the heights.

To the leader: with stringed instruments.

Habakkuk; NRSVue

no, God has not abandoned God’s people

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted,
but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:27-31; NRSVue

God’s people have a mission on earth. One could say in a nutshell that it’s essentially to be God’s light to the world. In fact, Jesus told his disciples that they are the light of the world, and I take that to mean especially together. That they already are. But also, that this light might be hidden if it is not shown in good works. We are blessed to be a blessing, called in Christ to not just shine a light on the darkness, but for that light to make a difference in a new, grace-filled way of life, challenging the old way of greed and power.

God’s people of old struggled with their calling, not unlike us as God’s people today. It was more than easy to settle down into the idolatry of the nations around them. For us it’s certainly no different. God’s people are caught up in the idolatry of the love of money in greed and lack of faith and the authoritarian power of the world. And enmeshed in a mind and heart set completely contrary to that of the reconciling gospel, which not only unites all people as one in Christ but breaks down all injustices at least in the sense of challenging all such, as well as working at living in an entirely different way.

Yes, we’re little better than God’s people of old, if better at all. Repentance is called for all of us. It’s all too easy for us to be caught up in the same priorities of the world, rather than the calling and priorities of Christ. I expect this to fall on deaf ears, because like God’s people of old, usually a change comes only through a breaking, as we might say, the hard way. But are any of us really immune to this? Don’t we struggle in similar ways? Yet in that struggle we should be endeavoring individually and with others to truly follow Christ.

And the call here is to wait on God. Our strength and all we need comes from God. And again, it is all about fulfilling the reason of our calling as God’s people. Nothing other than that.

back to the basics

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?

When evildoers assail me
to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
they shall stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
yet I will be confident.

One thing I asked of the LORD;
this I seek:
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.

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.

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.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
Your face, LORD, do I seek.
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!
If my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will take me up.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!

Psalm 27; NRSVue

While I endeavor to remain in the basics every day, I do have a tendency to drift to the place where I think I need to emphasize them again. For me the basics are Scripture reading, prayer and from that seeking and waiting on God and just seeking to be open to whatever God is wanting to teach me. Again, while I want to do that every day, it seems like there are times when I especially need to emphasize it again. I will add one more thing, which is not so much a daily thing as weekly for us: to remain in the communion of the saints which we receive through the church we’re a part of. Yes, in a sense that’s daily too, because we can contact each other and in a true sense that’s an every moment reality by the Spirit. But also there’s no replacement for the regular gathering.

Psalm 27 above, Scripture, points us to basics, to God as our light and salvation, to drawing near to God, to seeking God’s face, to waiting on God for God’s good answer and help. Some might say, or at least some that I know that we already are a temple of the living God both together and individually, that God is already nearer to us than the breath we breathe so that we really don’t have to seek God in any real sense or wait on God. God is already present. And they say that’s a new covenant truth, the covenant which in Christ we’re in which is true. But I would also add that it doesn’t mean that Psalm 27, even though it is in a first/old covenant setting has no meaning for us now. The psalms have been considered a hymnbook of the church for good reason. As Paul tells us, all of Scripture, though not written to us is somehow instructive for us.

I think we have to jog ourselves because while it may seem contradictory to some, Scripture says that we can drift away from the truth and reality of the gospel, the good news in Jesus. It needs to be personal for us every day. We know it’s for others, for the entire world, and we want to live as the light that we are in Christ individually and together for the good of others and for the good of all. We have to take care of ourselves first before we can help anyone else through prayers and good works which might well include simply listening (if you can call that a good work) done in love. For me this includes being in all of Scripture over time, and in prayer. Yes, God is near and yet because of my weakness being not yet glorified, in the body of my humiliation, I still need to draw near to God which includes confession of sin and seeking to grow into full maturity in Christ.

And to keep doing this.