06-22-21

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
June 22, 2021
Scripture: Psalm 94:18-19
When I thought, “My foot is slipping,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Thought for the Day: Based upon some comments I received, yesterday’s prayer seem to resonate with some folks. I’m guessing a few of you are not as proficient as you would like when it comes to leaving behind the worries of yesterday. You have that one friend who keeps on telling you to just turn it over to the Lord, but when you wake up every morning it appears as if someone stamped your worries, “Return to sender.” When the author of the Psalm speaks of “the cares of the heart,” it is a very nice and poetic way of describing the source of our excess stomach acid. Those of you my age or older will remember the commercial, “Calgon, take me away.” We are looking to the Lord for an escape, or at least a short reprieve. But the Psalmist suggests it is the “consolations” of the Lord that will cheer us up. What are consolations? Is it just another way of saying pity? I don’t think most of us are wanting that. The Hebrew word we translate as consolations comes from a verb that means to ease. It almost gives the impression of the Lord greasing the skids. I can picture myself under the weight of my worries, and I am spending a lot of energy trying to push the weight off. Yet it sounds as if God is less interested in lifting the weight off, and more interested in greasing our backs and trying to slide us out from underneath the weight. Its as if the Lord is saying, “This isn’t the way I want you to spend your energy. This weight will forever exist, so let’s just leave it where it is and we’ll have you move on. You can’t worry about what you can’t change.” Maybe there is a little martyr in all of us, somehow concluding it is our job to bear the weight of something that is not ours to bear. God is trying to pull us out while we continue to cling to it as if we must. In some cases, we need to let go and let God pull us out.

Prayer: There is much to cause us worry, O Lord of Steadfast Love. Much of that worry may not be healthy or even our worry to hold. Draw us out from underneath the weight and provide us a spirit of contentment that release us from any guilt. Amen.

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