Wednesday, June 25, 2025  

Today's Scripture
Psalm 43

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful and unjust
deliver me!
For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
why have you cast me off?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because of the oppression of the enemy?

O send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy;
and I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.(NRSV)

Reflection

My summer camp had a knack for worship in high places. On Sunday mornings, campers, leaders, and community friends stepped up the winding stairs to a soaring, open-air church at the top of a wooded dune. On weekday evenings, campers and leaders hiked a steep, sandy, switchback trail through maples and pines up to Vesper Dune — a tall, open sand dune overlooking Lake Michigan. From the 1920s to the 1980s, hundreds gathered on top of those dunes to hear scripture, music, poetry, and preaching.

Up there in the heights, perspectives change. You find yourself thinking less about what you left down below and more about the things that elevate us: beautiful vistas, new ways of seeing, a sense of being closer to God. The lesson that stands in memory today, however, is the uphill journey itself: everyone climbed up to those worship spaces, together, in complete, reverent silence. It was a collective transition from the ordinary to the holy.

Psalm 43 leads us on a symbolic uphill journey. Verses 1 and 2 begin in a low place: seeking vindication against one’s enemies, complaining of God’s abandonment, sinking into mourning. Then, with verse 3, a pivot: the psalmist asks God to send light, to send truth, and to lead him to God’s dwelling — to the place of worship on the holy mountain. “Then I will go to the altar of God, and I will praise thee, O God, my God.”

It takes both effort and intent to reach those high, holy places. Be it an uphill climb, a step inside a quiet sanctuary on a summer day, or a change in one’s frame of mind, the message is the same: you will need a time of transition to reach God’s dwelling place. Like the psalmist, we, too, can ask to be led by God’s light and truth. Once we arrive, may we be filled with the joy that comes in praising God.

Prayer

Heavenly Creator, send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me, let them bring me to thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling. Amen. 

Written by Sarah Forbes Orwig, Member of Fourth Presbyterian Church

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

Devotion index by date | I’d like to receive daily devotions by email