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| Image by Karen Bryan |
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A GREETING
My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody.
(Psalm 57:7)
A READING
Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn.
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
your faithfulness extends to the clouds.
(Psalm 57:8-10)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.
(Psalm 57:3b)
A REFLECTION
To recognize our beginnings, our origin in God, helps us dwell in time and not be consumed by it. In gratitude, the past is not tossed off but remains a source of power in the present. Indeed, it is gratitude that enables us to truly live in the present moment, to savour the details of daily life, to pay attention rather than tripping over our lives and ourselves on the way to some thing else. The present is more than a fleeting moment, an episode of meaning; it is filled with meaning if we would but attend to it. Patience is the attentiveness of gratitude. It is also the beginning of contemplation and prayer.
- from Radical Gratitude by Mary Jo Leddy
VERSE OF THE DAY
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.
(Psalm 57:11)
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| Image by Karen Bryan |
One of the most remarkable things about the Psalms is how much they can reflect and express the full range of our emotions, if we look closely enough. In today's reading, the Psalmist is expressing gratitude and love for God unabashedly. Although the reading is from the final verses of Psalm 57, the whole Psalm expresses a back and forth between lamenting misfortune and being entrapped by enemies, and then declaring a steadfast love for God. As times improve, the voice of the psalms showers love and gratitude on God, acknowledging a sense of God’s glory.
Sometimes, the things that feel like they entrap us do indeed come out of the blue and could not have been forseen. But sometimes we get ourselves into our own confining situations. The rationale we use for not facing something important, the shortcuts we make as a part of daily life simply to get by and feel like we are reasonably all right, can sometimes catch up to us. Whatever these situations may be, the Psalmist is telling us that God suffers with us in our sorrows and misfortunes and delights with us in our well-being.
Then, when things go well for us, we wish we could somehow express our joy. The abundance of grace that we receive from God cannot be measured, but gratitude is a sign that we are experiencing it. How can we more deeply awaken the gratitude that is in our hearts? How can we become more aware of the gift of God’s abundant grace today?
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A STORY OF ENDURANCE
During the pandemic, many of us took the opportunity to clean out our cupboards and closets. Nick Dymond is a photographer living on the Shetland Islands who did just that, and took thirty years of colour slides to the recycling depot. A watchful supervisor with a passion for archiving plucked them out again and began looking through them. He soon realized he was holding a rare historical record of life on the islands. After finding the photographer and posting some of the pictures to Facebook, a world of memory opened up for islanders who were otherwise in lockdown. Soon names and places and memories were unfolding in detail. The images became a way of connecting people not only to each other at a time of no-visiting, but also to a remembering of who they are and where they've been. The images told a story of endurance in bygone times, that helped encourage people in the present hard days.
Read more about them here.
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LC† Awakened by the Spirit is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!