Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Today’s Reading  |  Psalm 130

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. (NRSV)

Reflection
I don’t know if I know The Depths, the womb from which the psalmist’s cry is born in Psalm 130. You may know it. You may be there now. I imagine The Depths as that place joy has fled, where regret lurks and not even God seems present, if even aware. I don’t think I’ve been there. But the psalmist sure has.

From The Depths, faith waits and hopes. “My whole being hopes, and I wait for God’s promise,” says the psalmist. “My whole being waits for my Lord.” It may be bittersweet consolation that in The Depths one’s whole being is available and attuned in a way that it is not during a sunnier season. Maybe that’s important. Maybe The Depths call for all you have.

Can you admire the faith and the character of those in The Depths while not wanting to visit yourself? What a silly question. The Depths probably visit you in fact, flood-like, fire-like, and I imagine it matters little if you’ve cleaned house beforehand. I remember visiting Baton Rouge in 2011 and marveling at the courage and will of people who not only survived Katrina but who thrived as saints and heroes in that watery crucible. I wanted to be like them, but I didn’t want to endure what they’ve endured. They had been visited by The Depths and emerged, somehow, better.

May the waiting and the hoping The Depths demand produce something more than comfort.

Prayer
Hear the cry of your children from The Depths, O God. Visit them, visit us, with your steadfast love, your promise, and your faithfulness, so that we may be saved and transformed and so that our salvation would be a testimony to you. Amen.

Written by Rocky Supinger, Associate Pastor for Youth Ministry

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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