The Secret of the Psalter

“The New Testament laid emphasis upon ‘speaking to yourselves in Psalms” (Eph. 5:19) and “teaching and admonishing one another in psalms” (Col. 3:16). From ancient times in the Church a special significance has been attached to the common use of psalms. In many churches to this day constitutes the beginning of every service of common worship. The custom has been largely lost and we must find our way back to its prayers.”

"The Psalter is God’s Word and, with a few exceptions, the prayer of men as well.”

"A Psalm that we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One who is here protesting his innocence, who is invoking God’s judgment, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering is none other than Jesus Christ himself.”

“Jesus Christ prays through the Psalter in his congregation.”

Lessons from this school of prayer:

1. We should pray according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises.

2. We learn what we should pray.

Imprecatory Psalms (Wishing defeat upon our enemies). “In so far as Christ is in us, the Christ who took all the vengeance of God upon himself, who met God’s vengeance in our stead, who thus-stricken by the wrath of God-and in no other way, could forgive his enemies, who himself suffered the wrath that his enemies might go free-we, too, as members of this Jesus Christ, can prayer these psalms, through Jesus Christ, from the heart of Jesus Christ.”

Innocence Psalms “We declare our innocence not as our own, but as a ‘prayer out of the heart of Jesus Christ that was sinless and clean, out of the innocence of Christ in which he has given us a share by faith."

Lament Psalms “Not to make our own laments, but because all this suffering was real and actual in Jesus Christ because the Man Jesus Christ suffered sickness, pain, shame, and death.

3. The Psalms teach us to pray as a fellowship.

For those who are concerned the The Lord’s Prayer in the New Testament is primary, “Oetinger, in his exposition of the Psalms, brought our a profound truth when he arranged the whole Psalter according to the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. What he had discerned was that the whole sweep of the Book of Psalms was concerned with nothing more nor less than the brief petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. . . The more deeply we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the simple and rich will our prayer become.

(From Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, p. 44-50)

The Possum Re-Cap

The Possum Re-Cap

24 men from First Free and beyond
Came together four days to conquer The Pond
We were the possum, not the wolf nor the loon.
Our valiant flotilla launched out before noon...

Panama Doug dressed in white and a hat
Was barista and cook, on a trail mat he sat
With comments of color he caressed all our ears
sounds of the majestic will ring through the years

Greg came from the Airforce, a manly man's man
If you're green he'll help you the best that he can
In taking a break from guarding our nation
He made H20 at the hydration station

Bob (Or Hong Gu) was my paddling buddy
When I stopped to fish he did photography
For the sake of the group he did all our dishes
From sticky ole' oatmeal to ick from the fishes

Jordan the outdoorsman from very good stock
One night he decided to sleep on a rock
Thanks to his lures we snacked every night
On bass or on northern fried crispy and light.

Pete was a techy with gadgets a few
A camera attached to the bow of his canoe
With iphone he shot the stars late at night
With kindle he read to his heart's delight

Ted Jimmy Carter gave 'leader' new meaning
Cast a vision for bait that is clanking and spinning.
Bald as an eagle he fished like one, too
Catching a northern under bright skies of blue

Brother Ben kept it light with entertaining banter
'bout chemistry n biology, yes, he sure is a teacher
With stogie in mouth and rod in his hand
The fish should have feared him, for 3 he did land.

And I with my pen and my notebook in hand
Will recount this trip as best as I can
From seagull to Zephyr we strain'd 'gainst the wind
Poor Jordan lost his lunch on several islands

A full day at Zephyr, truly scenic delight
The lake to ourselves was a welcoming sight
A brief trip to Monument became something to see
Possums hailed Canucks with two cheeks and some wee.

Through Saganaga's waves we paddled to Camper's
There I swam like a fool to an island in sandals
The next day we finished our trip with a paddle
Herded into vans like wet smelly cattle

A Pathway to Wonder

When Albert Einstein was a boy or a young man, he remembers imagining traveling on a beam of light or something of the sort. This thought was far fetched, of course, but it revealed the beginning of his rumination on spatial concepts. Fast forward ten years, he is developing those concepts into the general theory of relativity. Ten and twenty more, and those concepts are being applied to change the world.

Einstein's commitment to challenge the status quo is both an inspiration and a warning. Without his re-imagining physics in light (slight pun intended) of new data, modern science would never have understood the power of the atom or how light actually reacts to gravitational fields. Scientists would have remained mired in justifying the existence of 'ether' (an immaterial substance supposed to exist in the transmission of light). Challenging the status quo allowed Einstein to explore the dynamics that actually existed in electromagnetic waves and at the subatomic level.

The warning from Einstein's life comes in the form of personal shortcomings. All the while busy with science, it seems he paid little attention to his family or faith. Having held only nominally to his Jewish religion, it remains questionable that he maintained a relationship with Yahweh by loving the Lord his God with all his heart (Deut. 6). Remarkably, Einstein does maintain the Creator's role in the universe, unlike many scientists of his day and ours.

I am indebted to my reading of Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe for stretching my mind to walk a renewed pathway of wonder at the physical universe. I am amazed at the existence of light and the physical realities that occur to create what we take for granted as 'vision.' A light/energy source produces powerful waves of photons, traveling at enormous speeds, passing through vacuum and atmosphere to reflect off other simple collections of atoms, all to eventually be interpreted as color and shape by our retinas. In other words sun light bounces off a leaf to be seen my be as a wilting maple on 100 degree day.

What a day earlier was a mere convenience to my sweaty self became the wonder of reality. The wonder is not so much how it happens, though that is interesting, too. The wonder is that it happens. My son, who is six months old, looks at leaves with wonder. He has never seen them before. He is intrigued by a tree, especially one moved by the wind. There is no need for thought about the intricacies of the tree to appreciate it. He sees it and is captured. "What is that?" might be his thought, or "Look at that!" or more likely, just plain staring. Rendered numb by years of viewing, I don't even pay attention. Seen it all, I think.

Fortunately, the eyes of Micah and Einstein both rouse me from wonder slumber to appreciate not only that light happens, but why light happens. Light was the third invention by the Greatest mind ever-

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness (Gen. 1:3-4)

Why do we have light? God made it. It is an entity separate from darkness. He evaluated light and judged it good. Since then, it's existence has made the rest of creation observable. The volume of light will one day increase, as darkness vanishes and as God himself becomes observable. Somehow He will eventually reveal himself as the source of all light.

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 22:4-5)

Have you paused to appreciate vision and the realities of the physical universe today? I am grateful to Einstein's grappling with these realities and new appreciation I have for things seen. I give credit to a glorious God who made these realities and has hidden them from us, that we might, by searching, studying, postulating, testing and discovering, live in the wonder of the world around us.

Answered Prayer

A year and a half ago, I was thinking about what God wanted me to do with my life. A mentor/friend of mine instructed me to write down my prayer requests on a sheet of paper. Doing so, he said, would help me clarify what I was thinking in my heart. It would also help me to wait and trust God with those things, rather than worrying about them.

So I thought and prayer and wrote down 10 things, each of them driven by my passion of who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. Months later, I met with my mentor/friend at a Mexican restaurant. After we munched on chips and salsa a while, I showed him my sheet of requests. He took my Bible and said this is where you put it. He opened my Bible to Psalms 91. "You put it there because you trust God with it. He hears you and protects you and your family." It was a moving moment for me. Here are some words from both Psalm 90 and Psalm 91.

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands." - Ps. 90:17

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty." - Ps. 91:1

It is powerful for me--to think of God's promise and protection.

Some of those requests were: "Help me to lead an inspiring worship ministry. Help me finish ordination as unto the Lord. Help Erica have a healthy pregnancy." And God has been faithful to work these things out. Good Friday and Easter services this year were about as inspiring as any I've led. The ordination process has sharpened my mind and reminded me of the clarity of God's Word. Micah was born as healthy as a baby boy could be--and continues to be healthy. What great answers to prayer. Thank you, Lord.

One of the requests was "To make it abundantly clear when and how and if I should leave First Free Church." That was a hard one, because it would mean change. It, too, has been answered as after a conversation with the church leadership, I have decided to resign from First Free last week. It was abundantly clear.

There are several prayer requests left on that sheet that I am trusting God with. I trust that He knows what He is doing as we will be seeking His guidance for our next steps this Summer. Erica and I do so, knowing that He is the one who will establish the work of our hands. We seek God knowing that He is our protection. God does answer prayer. To God be the glory!