Weather Alert:

Church programs for Monday, Jan. 22 will resume their normal schedule at all locations this evening.

Programming Note:

Leawood’s Sunday night in-person worship has been moved to 4 pm for Sunday, February 11. 

Search
Close this search box.

Poetic prayers for God’s spirit

September 12, 2024
SHARE

Daily Scripture

Psalm 51:8-13, 139:5-10

Psalm 51
8 Let me hear joy and celebration again;
    let the bones you crushed rejoice once more.
9 Hide your face from my sins;
    wipe away all my guilty deeds!
10 Create a clean heart for me, God;
    put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me!
11 Please don’t throw me out of your presence;
    please don’t take your holy spirit away from me.
12 Return the joy of your salvation to me
    and sustain me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach wrongdoers your ways,
    and sinners will come back to you.

Psalm 139
5 You surround me—front and back.
    You put your hand on me.
6 That kind of knowledge is too much for me;
    it’s so high above me that I can’t reach it.
7 Where could I go to get away from your spirit?
    Where could I go to escape your presence?
8 If I went up to heaven, you would be there.
    If I went down to the grave [Hebrew sheol], you would be there too!
9 If I could fly on the wings of dawn,
    stopping to rest only on the far side of the ocean—
10         even there your hand would guide me;
        even there your strong hand would hold me tight!

Daily Reflection & Prayer

We often read Psalm 51 through the lens of Jesus’ and the apostle Paul’s Holy Spirit teaching. But it was written centuries earlier. In its context, “God’s breath—spirit is the source of all human life and vitality… The phrase God’s holy Spirit does not carry the developed ideas it has in the New Testament and in Christian theology. Only here and in Isaiah 63:10, 11 is the phrase used in the Old Testament.” * Psalm 139 also recognized God’s presence in all of life.

  • “God has the ability to create and re-create, activities associated elsewhere with God’s spirit (see Genesis 1:2). The threefold repetition of ‘spirit’ suggests that new life is possible for the forgiven sinner. Holy spirit…. seems here to designate the living and life-giving presence of God.” ** Have you ever had the crushing sense that God couldn’t possibly forgive something you have done? How does this earnest poetic prayer of repentance tell you that is never the case?
  • Psalm 139 said to God, “You surround me.” “Surround” has a double-edged quality. “It can be encouraging to know that we can never get beyond the realm of God’s care for us. Yet…. Amos 9 uses the same language… in speaking of people going down to Sheol or going up to the heavens and of God’s hand being able to reach them there, but it does so to remind Israel that it cannot escape God’s judgment.” *** What helps you to trust more than fear the God who surrounds you?
Prayer

O God, when I need your forgiveness (as I too often do), give me a mind willing to face the truth, and a heart willing to humble myself before your holiness and trust fully in your goodness, not my own. Amen.

GPS Insights

Picture of Janelle Gregory

Janelle Gregory

Janelle Gregory serves on the Resurrection staff as Human Resources Lead Director. Janelle finds that her heart is constantly wrestling with the truth that she needs a Savior, and the times when she's at her very best are when she's just too tired to put up a fight.

 

When was the last time you felt your heart pound? Maybe it was when you were on a thrilling ride. It could have been when you saw someone you love. Or perhaps it was when you were frightened by a spider, during turbulence on a flight, or the phobia of your choice. There are certainly times when we feel our heart, but that’s not the norm. We generally go through our days with very little awareness that our heart is even there. Yet, our heart is always there, pumping life and nourishment through our body. It’s the very rhythm of our lives.
 
I think about the heart when I think about the Holy Spirit. There is a common notion among believers that one may be distant from God. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say that they “drifted from God” or they even “ran away from God.” I understand the concept, but this conjures up an image of there being a physical space, even a chasm, between an individual and God. There may be a time when you felt that yourself. You believed that, in some way, God was distant from you, or that you distanced yourself from God.
 
But just as we cannot distance ourselves from our heart, I don’t believe that we can distance ourselves from God. When God feels distant, it’s just that. It’s a feeling. It is not the truth of God’s presence. God is never away. The Holy Spirit is always present. It is very possible that we may be ignoring God, living as if though he’s not there. This leads us to believe, or even wish, that there is a separation. We may have even walked through a time of darkness, a time when we felt truly alone. This would also imply that God was away from us. But this doesn’t mean that this is the case. What feels like distance is a matter of awareness. We are not close to or far from God; we are aware or unaware of God’s closeness. Just as the heart pumps life through our bodies, the Holy Spirit is always in us and among us, pumping life and nourishment through our souls.
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References

* Robert G. Bratcher and William D. Reyburn, A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. New York: United Bible Societies, 1991, p, 473.
** J. Clinton McCann, study note on Psalm 51:10 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 897 OT.
*** John Goldingay, Psalms for Everyone, Part 2: Psalms 73–150. Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 201.