“Be strong
and let your heart take courage, *
all you who wait for the LORD.”
all you who wait for the LORD.”
Psalm 31, Morning Prayer, Friday after Ash Wednesday, The Daily Office Book
This is a beautiful chant by Alastair Stout, unfortunately, the sound quality is bad, but still worth listening to. It is lovely:
For
me, Psalm 31 sums up the cycles we seem to experience in life. I have gone
through times of great distress, where I feel everyone and everything is
against me, perhaps especially my notions of God, making God out to be
something God is not, as in not a puppet-master, a magician, or someone I can
make a deal with, someone who’s behavior I can change by my behavior.
As
a Christian I believe God is the loving God found in Christ Jesus and that God
does love us regardless of how we behave. It’s not whether I believe I’m
lovable or whether God will abandon me if I behave badly. God’s love will never
abandon me or anyone else, God’s love is the constant I can wait on. What matters most is
whether I will respond to God’s compassionate love, by in turn offering my
compassion to the people and world around me.
Trust
in love’s divine power, wait, be strong with courage and allow love’s power, God’s
power, to take shape in your heart, mind and hands. Give the mustard seed of
compassion the time to grow while caring for it and nurturing it in the caring
of yourself and those you come in contact with.
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