Thursday, August
3, 2017
O Lord, hear my plea for justice. Listen to my cry for help. Pay attention to my prayer, for it comes from
honest lips. Declare me innocent, for
you see those who do right. You have tested
my thoughts and examined my heart in the night.
You have scrutinized me and found nothing wrong. I am determined not to sin in what I say. I have followed your commands, which keep me
from following cruel and evil people. My
steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you. I am praying to you because I know you will
answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I
pray. Show me your unfailing love in
wonderful ways. By your mighty power you
rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies. Psalm 17:1-7(NLT)
I’ve often
wondered how the people of great reputation in the Biblical accounts could also
appear so small, frail, and full of weakness.
But as soon as I begin that pondering, reality rises up in my thoughts,
that those people are flesh-and-blood, not icons painted on a wall. Of course they have moments, even months or
years, when they’re not icons of faith; they’re reminders that we all come from small places.
When we
leave the womb we begin to face the possibility of isolation, being alone. And, not being created for aloneness, it troubles
us. David spent months being chased into
the wilderness places, hounded by an increasingly insane King Saul, former
benefactor and mentor (when your friends turn the darkness deepens!). So David spent time hiding in caves to avoid
capture and death. Dark caves, silent
places, are places where you have no place; you only exist. David spent a lot of time crying-out to God for
rescue from his troubled existence.
Did you
catch David’s dark weakness when he lifted up his voice to pray?
I am praying
to you because I know you will answer, O God.
Bend down and listen as I pray.
David
expressed faith (I know you
will answer, O God),
but the next phrase tells just how very disconnected David senses his prayers
are from God: Bend down…, this is the cry of someone who feels very
small and very isolated.
This is my liturgy of light for dark places.
There have
been a number of times in my life, (and it still happens occasionally), that the
aloneness of that small and vulnerable newborn child, just out of the mother’s
womb, rises up in my soul and proclaims the profoundness of the darkness that
surrounds and would swallow me up! It is
then I need the liturgy of light!
Liturgy is
something we might connect with a labored, boring responsive reading, or long,
drawn-out call and response during the sacraments. Literally, the word “liturgy” is work of the people, our part
in offering worship to God. As the
people of God offer genuine, heart-felt worship, darkness is dispelled, chased
from our lives. That is why whenever you
don’t feel like coming to church on a given Sunday…and you go anyway…when you
leave church that day there is a general sense of lightness; you feel better
for having attended – glad you went!
The
darkness had to leave when you emptied yourself in the presence of light!
For You Today
Got
darkness? There’s an app for that…liturgy of light!
NOTES
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