This is definitely in my top 5 favorite Psalms. I probably know it best from the order for Evening Prayer, either from the Lutheran Book of Worship or Holden Village. But these words are not a calming, sleepytime prayer for the end of the day. They call for quick and urgent help from God, from someone whose situation does not allow them to get down to the Jerusalem Temple to offer incense, as they would normally do. They ask that this prayer be the substitute for the evening sacrifice. When times are dire, you pray however you can.
Sometimes you just don't have time to come up with exactly the right prayer for the right moment, especially when you're panicking. That's why the Psalms are such a treasure. When there is no time or extra mental space for a new, creative, worship to address the situation at hand, when you don't have the time to run bulletins and recruit ushers and acolytes, you still have something more potent: songs of worship, inspired by God, written by faithful people stumbling through life just like we are, and sometimes panicking. When you don't have incense, you have their prayers.
God, when my creativity and imagination fails me, thank you for writing these words on my heart: "Let my prayer rise before you as incense; the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."
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