Observation: This is a psalm of pure praise for al that God has done. God's name is holy and awesome, God's deeds are renowned throughout the earth, God's teachings are trustworthy, God is just good, all the time.
Application: Some days a reading just strikes you as so cogent, so appropriate to your situation that it blows you away. Today is NOT one of those days. I am not feeling like praising God's power and might and wonderful deeds this morning--not because I don't believe in them, but because this morning, I'm grieving the loss of a good friend. Sarah Ehrman Merriken, a fellow graduate of Trinity seminary and fellow mentor in the Delaware/Maryland LYO, a woman who was truly gifted in welcoming the stranger and discipling young people to do the same, yet who always managed to do so with a twinkle in her eye and a snarky joke from time to time, lost her life to cancer yesterday. She was my age. I'm praying for her husband, her family and so many others who were close to her. It does not seem right, or fair, or just, and I am in no mood for a psalm of ultimate praise today. For those of us who knew, loved and valued Sarah, it does not feel like today is our day, nor Psalm 111 our psalm.
With our youth group in Lake Ann, we've been studying Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. I read it years ago in seminary, and something Bonhoeffer said about the psalms has stuck with me and grabbed me again as I was reading it. Essentially he said that as we pray the psalms, we pray the prayers of Christ. Jesus prayed the psalms every day, and now that he has borne all our sufferings, he can relate to any of the sufferings found there in the psalms, as well as any of the praise, because he is risen. Also, Bonhoeffer wrote about how if a psalm doesn't seem to fit your individual life experience today, you can bet it will fit someone else's, so as part of the church across space and time, you can pray it for them.
So I can tell that Psalm 111 isn't my psalm today. I'm not feeling it. But as I think of it, I remember that Sarah has now attained the promise of Christ's resurrection, and in a way, this could be her song today. The pain is gone. The healing and new life has come.
"God has gained renown by God's wonderful deeds, the Lord is gracious and merciful."
Thanks be to God for Sarah, and for all God has done for us, especially in the death and resurrection of Jesus, our Savior.
My prayer today will be from a song well known to youth and mentors in Delaware and Maryland, and probably beyond.
Praise our God
for God is good
Praise our God
for God is good
He has done for me
He has done for you
He has done for us
Come and listen
Come and listen to what he's done
Come and listen
Come and listen to what he's done.
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