Check out the "Primer" post for more thorough details on Reading the Psalms. In a nutshell, read the listed psalms and journal the word, phrase, or verse that jumps out at you. After you have done this, share these notes down in the comment section. Then read through the things that I jotted down in my reading, and the comments of others. Most importantly enjoy the process.
If you're reading this you can read Psalm 5-8 online if you don't have your print Bible handy.
5) vs. 7 - through your love will I enter your house
6) vs. 5 - in my death there is no one to remember you, so keep me alive and well so I may glorify you!
7) vs. 3, 8, 11 - righteous God who judges rightly based on our actions.
8) vs. 1, 9 - Chorus - O LORD, our LORD, how majestic is your name in all the earth (I like this song!).
vs. 4 - We are so lowly, yet created and lifted up above the rest of creation.
Prayer: God of all creation, your love lifts up above all else, even into your house. Knowing that you judge rightly based on our actions, may our lives glorify you always. Amen.
Psalm 5. I love the way this opens with the petition for God to listen [vs 1 & 2] and then the affirmation [v3] that God does hear us. As a preacher I resonate with how this prayer ties the awareness of God's blessing to the need to gather in worship to praise God [v7]. Then we slide from that lofty height into the "revenge mindedness" so prevalent in Psalms. I think we Christians are guilty of selectively reading the psalms, i.e. we skip past vs 4 - 6 and 9 - 10.
ReplyDeletePsalm 6 - Again as a pastor I have visited and prayed for those who felt just like this - burden by suffering and desperate for hope. (Again, do we delete vs 9-10?)
Psalm 7 - I jerked back at verse 3, thinking would I dare to challenge God to do so judge me? No!. Yet, do I not believe that God is aware of all I do and am? If so, why then do I keep on?
Psalm 8 - Ah, at last. A psalm we can shout at the top of our voice. This is what we think psalms are all about, when in reality psalm is a collection of someone's prayer journal. What we do is pick and choose the lines we like, and say that is the psalms. If this were what all the psalms were about, I read them over and over.
Keith
When Good News translation was first published the Psalms were my favorite part! 5-6 described how I had often felt. My aha was to see that even after the lament of the circumstances in his life, the psalmist concluded with trust and praise of God.
ReplyDeletePsalm 7 - I don't resonate with the whole revenge and calling for God's wrath on evil doers. Hard to reconcile that image with the God of the New Covenant.
Psalm 8- Living out here in hinterlands I often look up at night to the stars and this psalm is on my lips! And the assurance that we are crowned with glory and honor. And a song springs forth...O Lord our Lord how majestic is your name in all of the earth.
Psalm 5:11 Do we just go to God when things don't go our way? Do we moan and groan and complain and as a last resort finally turn to God? Do we seek 'refuge' as the last thing we do? Do we shout for joy each day knowing the wonderful life that God has provided? As for me, my "shouts" are like 'peeps.' God gave me a voice to use to further His Kingdom.....yet so often I am silent.
ReplyDeleteI'm a "peeper" too, but am working toward a goal of being less so!
DeletePsalm 5:6.- "the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful" - I am not in this alone. God knows!
ReplyDeletePsalm 7:15-16 - [They] "fall into a hole that they have made. Their mischief returns upon their own heads." Justice will be done!
Psalm 8 - One of my favorite psalms. "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers...what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor." How blessed we are!
Ps.5,6,7: More "refuge" psalms. Here is seems to be refuge FROM God's wrath and other evil humans. Thank goodness the refuge Jesus offers is also FROM our own sins and sinful nature and that's what I need most of all. Just when I think I've got it right on the outside - being kind, etc, some critical or vicious thought pops up and tries to ruin it.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, Ps 8!! now there's one that even us "peepers" could belt out - Mis Amy, we should sing the song based on that sometime soon in first service - with vigor!
I love Psalm 8, but am struggling with this verse:
ReplyDelete"Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger."
Is this a reference to the early church and the apostles? God choosing the weak things to shame the strong? The basis for Jesus' statement about "out of the lips of children and infants"? A comment on the awesomeness of babies and children? Or (this is a stretch) a challenge for our church to undergo new growth as a bulwark against God's foes?
Linda, Since children were not seen as the source of wisdom or knowledge, this seems to be an ironic statement. Something along the lines of "even out of the mouths ... God's glory is proclaimed. Much like Jesus saying about children. They see the obvious, why can't you adults.
DeleteIn psalm 8 the majesty of God is so affirmed that it is a bulwark. Gives a whole new emphasis to our role of praising God. Keith
In addition, children are the newest humans who have not been altered or corrupted by the world. They call it like they see it as it were. No education or violence to inform their words. Just the purest impression.
Delete