Tag: intimacy

Take this moment, sign and space

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is John Bell’s “Take this moment, time and space”. It’s a gentle song addressing Christ in an intimate way, asking him to take me as I am and build my relationship with him in various ways.

The first verse asks that with my friends I may “make this place where your love is found”; the second and third ask for the time needed to accept forgiveness for past failings and regrets, acknowledging also my tiredness (a reality of many busy lives, rarely mentioned in our busy churches!) The fourth verse has some rather odd words about “the child in me scared of growing old”, and finding my true worth; and the last verse looks to the future (“take my talents, take my skills, take what’s yet to be”).

There could scarcely be more contrast in style between this, and yesterday’s bold declaration of faith in Christ’s saving power. But both have their place in a balanced spiritual life. At some points in our lives we will feel like praising God exuberantly, looking up to heaven; at others we will be like the proverbial tax collector beating his breast in shame and approaching God timidly for mercy; at others, just coming to God as we are, “weary, worn and sad” as another hymn puts it, and this song fits that last mood best.

The Bible in a Year – 23 July

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this, and the introduction to the Psalms for this book of the Bible in particular.

23 July. Psalms 133-139

Most of the psalms in this batch are communal songs of praise. The first two are the remaining “songs of ascent” – see yesterday’s post.

The next two (135 and 136) are longer, and similar in scope, each being in three parts, praising God first for his acts of creation, then for his acts of redemption (saving Israel from Egypt) and then for his acts of protection (enabling them to defeat their enemies).  The two psalms are very different in style, however, as 136 is written in cantor-and-response format, such as is found today in some of the popular Taize chants, where one singer calls out short phrases of praise and thanksgiving, and the chorus responds with the same line each time, in this instance “for his steadfast love endures for ever”. The point of such repetition, as with any prayer mantra, is to get the concept deep inside one’s thinking.  If you repeat many times that “God’s steadfast love endures forever” it becomes part of your thinking, and this is a good basis for a confident faith.

 

The last of these, psalm 139, is one of the best known, and very different in style.  It is a personal and intimate prayer, a conversation with the God who wants each one of us to know that we are loved by God as by a parent, indeed more so, for God knew us before we were even conceived!