As our little community gathered this week to listen and pray, Sarah Patton invites us to prayer.
The psalmist is calling to God, crying out to God, beseeching God to listen to the spoken words and even the unformed words from the innermost depths. The words my soul looks for you wildly express the deep longing for God to hear and respond.
The psalmist’s cries may resonate with the cries of your heart. Perhaps you are calling to God for help or you may be calling to God seeking forgiveness. You may feel a deep longing in your soul that you cannot put into words. Like the psalmist, you yearn for God to hear you. Maybe you have echoed the words, Lord, hear my voice. Perhaps you have been waiting a long time, desperately waiting for a breakthrough, waiting for a response from God. Meet yourself with compassion, knowing that God is with you just as you are.
Waiting for God’s word of response, the psalmist remembers God’s storehouse of kindness and the hope of God’s steadfast love. In the quiet at our gathering, one listener envisioned an overflowing bowl of popcorn and savored each kernel of kindness. Another saw a silo filled to the rim with the bounty of God’s kindness. Pause here and notice what rises up in you as you remember God’s storehouse of kindness.
Linger in the psalm and let it land in your heart. Offer what comes to you as a prayer.
Psalm 130 – NRSV
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord; my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.
For Reflection and Prayer:
Was there a word, a phrase, image, or feeling that ‘shimmered’ as you listened? Allow it to land in your heart. Stay with it. Savor it.
Reflect on what you heard. What effect does it have on you? What meaning does it hold for you? What does the Holy Spirit seem to be conveying to you? Talk it over in your prayer.
Perhaps you want to draw or color your prayer or journal the conversation.
As the time of prayer comes to a close, share some moments of quiet with Jesus, simply resting safely in his presence.
Psalm 130 – The Complete Psalms
From the fathomless deep I have called to you, God.
Listen to the innermost depths of my voice.
Open your ears to the sound of my cry.
If you kept a record of guilt, my Source of Strength,
who could remain standing?
For with you is forgiveness;
from it, we learn how to hold you in wonder.
I look for you, my soul looks for you wildly,
I wait for your word of response.
My soul longs for you
more than the watchmen at the gate longs for morning,
more than the tired watchman at the gate
longs for the first flicker of dawn.
Let Israel put its hope in God,
for with you is a storehouse of kindness,
and with the Holy One redemption abounds.
You will redeem Israel
from all its guilt and confusion and sin.