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Remembering for the sake of the future

May 30, 2024
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Daily Scripture

Psalm 71:14-19

14 But me? I will hope. Always.
    I will add to all your praise.
15 My mouth will repeat your righteous acts
    and your saving deeds all day long.
    I don’t even know how many of those there are!
16 I will dwell on your mighty acts, my LORD.
    LORD, I will help others remember nothing but your righteous deeds.
17 You’ve taught me since my youth, God,
    and I’m still proclaiming your wondrous deeds!
18 So, even in my old age with gray hair,
    don’t abandon me, God!
    Not until I tell generations about your mighty arm,
        tell all who are yet to come about your strength,
19         and about your ultimate righteousness, God,
    because you’ve done awesome things!
Who can compare to you, God?

Daily Reflection & Prayer

It’s easy to think in purely financial terms about “legacy” (and our level of economic resources shapes that part of it). But beyond money or property, we also leave a legacy by the faith we share. God’s people have always valued teaching. In Israel, the focus of teaching was not to satisfy random human curiosity, but to pass on the knowledge of God’s powerful acts to future generations. They knew that God wants us to develop our own minds and those of others faithfully and well.

  • Psalm 71 was not like investment ads that picture our “senior” years as a non-stop, luxurious vacation. The psalmist’s “bucket list” was a lifelong calling to share God’s love and power: “Even in my old age with gray hair, don’t abandon me, God! Not until I tell generations about your mighty arm, tell all who are yet to come about your strength.” Whether you’re 21 or 81, how are you (or how will you start) building a legacy to tell future generations about the God you love and serve?
  • “In Psalm 71, the expressions ‘all day long’ and ‘forever’ and ‘always’ recur…. Three times, then, the psalm talks in terms of ‘always’ (no psalm makes more use of this word). In the past, ‘my praise has always been of you.’ In the present, I need you to be ‘a shelter to which I can always come.’ In the future, ‘I will hope always.’” * How can seeing and sharing the ways God’s goodness has touched all parts of your life shape a powerful legacy of trust and faith to pass on?

Prayer

Lord God, I want to live a life with the big picture aim of helping both present and future generations know your strength and ultimate righteousness. Please guide and shape me. Amen.

GPS Insights

Picture of Ginny Howell

Ginny Howell

Ginny Howell serves as the Worship Experience Director for Resurrection, leading the church’s efforts to provide radical hospitality and an excellent worship experience across all of our locations. She’s a mom to three, g-momma to one sweet little boy, and shares much of her time with her closest companion, a rescued Pit Bull named Lola.

I think hope is one of the most coveted superpowers of our time. Let me explain.

The prevalence of people who are impacted by mental health disorders has been on the rise throughout the majority of my lifetime. I am not a mental health professional of any kind, so this isn’t a clinical commentary, but I can tell you as a mother and daughter and sister and friend and leader and Christ follower that the ways that I interact with people across all spans of my life have been significantly impacted by mental health issues. In a previous career, I almost exclusively served individuals who experienced what was classified as severe and persistent mental illness as defined by the KS Department of Rehabilitation at that time. As a parent, more than once, I have sat by the hospital bedside of a child who just didn’t feel like they could go on.

Walking alongside people who experience anxiety, depression and a host of other mental health challenges has opened my eyes as someone who has not experienced that for myself. I have days where I may feel a bit down and I certainly have some anxieties that I continue to learn how to manage, but I have not felt for myself the type of excruciating sadness or crippling anxiety of many of those whose hands I have held and whose hearts I have fervently prayed for.

When someone feels their world is falling apart or their mind is not allowing them to see reality as it actually is, hope feels very out of reach. When chemicals pumping through our brains trick our bodies into living in flight-or-flight mode, everything feels as if it’s a life-or-death situation, when rarely are things actually so for most of us in the developed world.

Hope doesn’t deny those feelings. It is not an instant elixir to solve what ails us. Hope doesn’t erase a diagnosis or un-check any boxes from a list of troubling symptoms, but it does change things if we can help each other catch glimpses of it. I am sure there are healthcare workers who wish they could bottle it, as feeling hopeful for anything at all can be a real turning point for someone who can only see darkness.

As I read verses 14 and 15 from our scripture today, I recognized myself, and even more my role, in these sacred moments where I have had the privilege of caring for others in such challenging personal times. ‘But for me? I will Hope. Always….. My mouth will repeat your righteous acts and your saving deeds all day long…’

 Hope is a superpower. Who can you share a message of hope with? Who do you know who might have some hope to spare if and when you need some?

© 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

* John Goldingay, Psalms for Everyone, Part 1: Psalms 1–72. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p. 221.