Meditation 227
Psalm 25: 1-10
This psalm was one that was well known to me and the members of my youth group. We used to sing some of the verses accompanied by the guitar. The chorus we sang was “Oh my God. I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me” (verse 1 in the King Janes Version) This could be our prayer each day, “Oh my God in you I trust.” (New Revised Standard Version)
This week we are getting ready for Lent. Tuesday will be Pancake Day and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. Lent is a time to repent, to reflect upon one’s place before God, to pray more, to remember that we trust in God. Lent can be a helpful time in our growth in faith, a time to focus on God and what God hopes for us.
This psalm reminds us to lift our soul to God. To me this is an invitation to bring our whole self to God. Our minds and our hearts, our plans and our hopes, our families and our friends. We bring it all to God. In this psalm David asks to be shown God’s paths, to be led in God’s truth, and for God to teach him. David’s humanness is shown when he also asks for his enemies to not exalt over him, and for those who are treacherous to be put to shame. It can be satisfying to see one’s enemies in the place of not being able to exalt, that is for one’s enemies to not show either power or extreme happiness. I don’t know about David, but I know in my own heart that if I look to be sure that my enemy is not too happy or successful that I lose sight of God, and therefore lose sight of the path that leads to God’s truth. Our focus needs to be God in whom we trust.
Reminders of God are everywhere as the conversation we had before the church service began yesterday showed. We were talking about things that had happened through the week. We were getting caught up with each other as one person talked about going tobogganing, we touched on the party lines that used to be the means of having a phone in the home, we talked about Valentine’s Day, and the beautiful sunrise that God had given yesterday morning. The mention of sunrise was a reminder of the good that God gives to us. The reminders of God’s power in creating the world, God’s love in giving us beauty and God’s constancy in the way we see sunrise and sunset each day. It is enough for us to look to God. David says in verse 6, “Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.” This must be a turn of phrase that David uses in the psalm, because we know that God does not need to be reminded to be merciful and loving, since it is God’s nature to be merciful, just, and loving. When we look to God, we are looking away from the messiness and meanness of life. When we look to God and make God the point of our meditation we become more like God, or as the proverb says, as people think within their hearts, so are they. We can make this our prayer “create in me a clean heart O God and put a new and right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)