PLTS Daily Prayer
Sample Daily Prayers
Psalm 98:1
O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory.
I love to listen to my four-year-old grandson, Sam, sing songs of his own making. Sometimes they are just a sweet somewhat aimless chant. Sometimes they are endless variations on a single simple line. Usually they are soft, gentle, introspective, meditative. I will overhear him humming to himself or savoring a tuneful syllable while he is playing with his cars and trucks.
Unlike the songs I tend to sing, every song Sam sings is a new song. Each one is his fresh creation; neither the earth nor any of its creatures has ever heard Sam’s songs before he intones them. They are voiced forth as humble paeans to the goodness and generosity of life that Sam imbibes each day. Sam doesn’t need to memorize or repeat his songs because they flow forth unselfconsciously and spontaneously from his joy and contentment.
We need neither marvels nor grand victories to sing new songs, only eyes and ears that are open and hearts ready to receive each day’s bounty.
God, open my eyes this day to see your goodness and my lips to sing new songs of thankful wonder. Amen.
— Gary Pence, Professor Emeritus
Psalm 98:2
The Lord has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication
in the sight of the nations.
Vindication? Does God really need to prove anything to anyone, to defend Godself before whatever detractors might make accusations against God? (“What a loser! This so-called god can’t even defeat the miserable Edomites!”) And is God to be judged by the battles won, the cities sacked, the notches carved in the stock of “his” rifle to count the scalps of those hapless “enemy” troops God has triumphantly offed?
No doubt this Psalm was composed to celebrate a military victory, a success that no doubt meant that the composer’s life had been spared, with his family’s and his compatriots’. Defeat would likely have meant servitude, deportation, destruction, death. At such a moment, victory once fiercely hoped for will be as dear as life itself. And the saved who trusted God will trumpet God’s name abroad at the apex of their own exultation.
But most of life is not about battles, however much we are inclined to frame our experience of life just that way (“battles” with cancer, “wars” on drugs and crime, “struggles” with depression, “contests” of wills). We do not live in an apocalyptic combat zone surrounded by enemies contesting good and evil, light and darkness, life and death—the stuff of drama and the stage.
It’s a more modest arena we inhabit, where mostly decent people muck about and often enough make a mess of life without really trying. In such a world it is enough if God just gets us through another day even if no one else really knows or much cares. God doesn’t need to be grand and glorious to be good. God just needs to be here, to stick with us, and see us through the next day. That is plenty.
God, reveal your goodness to me in the breaking of this evening’s bread, and I will be content. Amen.
— Gary Pence, Professor Emeritus
Psalm 98:3
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
Psalms find their poetry in repetition—repetition within each two-line couplet, repetition from couplet to couplet, even psalm to psalm. So this third verse gathers up and repeats again themes of verses one and two—the singing, the victory, the spreading of the good news.
Repetition is good for the soul. It’s certainly good for the heart, which we profoundly want to keep beating away its boring, repetitious thump every second of every day for as long as we can keep it pumping. Repetition is really good for the lungs—oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, in and out, again and again and again, so long as our lungs shall live.
In this verse the victory celebrated is linked to God’s “steadfast love and faithfulness.” God delivers because God’s love is solid and God’s word is true. That new song we sing will not focus on God’s “right hand and holy arm,” but on God’s “steadfast love and faithfulness”—not on God’s might so much as on God’s unwavering compassion. How do you experience that steady, dependable, consistent, compassionate presence in your own life?
God, in the dependable, barely noticeable regularities and repetitions of my life, open my eyes to see your love. Amen.
— Gary Pence, Professor Emeritus
Psalm 98:7
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
One year ago, I wondered if I would ever see the Pacific Ocean again. I was moving to St. Paul, MN with a new job. I’d bought a condo in that city thinking I had resituated to the Midwest for a long time. I was getting married to a Midwesterner. So my last pilgrimage before leaving Berkeley, was a trip to the Muir Woods that ended up in a trek to see the Pacific Ocean—just one more time. (Little did I know that it would end up being a 5 hour non-stop hike. But I didn’t regret it, though my body did just a little bit.)
After nine months in St. Paul, and a winter full of real snow (that included the privilege of a visit to the famous Ice Palace), I was reunited with California . . . and the roaring sounds of our Pacific sea. A long walk along the seashore listening to the waves and watching them roll back and forth can coax one back into the framework of God. The landscape can be a compelling reminder of whose we are and whom we serve.
Back to California: What is especially wonderful about this state is the landscape. Christopher Isherwood said that “the real nature of California (is) . . .the secret of its fascination; this untamed, undomesticated, aloof, prehistoric landscape which relentlessly reminds the traveler of his human condition and the circumstances of his tenure upon the earth.” Isherwood goes on to say: “The California landscape breaks into our neurosis (and tells us that) I am not part of your neurosis.” God can break into our mental landscape, if we are open to listening.
Let the sea roar at us today, Lord, whether it is an ocean wave crashing or a friend chattering. Let your voice break through and remind us that you are the one who created us. May your love surround us and caress us. We are yours. Amen.
— Cindy Carroll, Former PLTS Vice President for Advancement
Psalm 98:8
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy.
Isn’t it interesting how hurricanes take on the persona of people? In the last month or so, we’ve come to know Florence, Charlie and now Ivan. They each seem to take on distinctive, larger than life personalities, like characters in fairy tales. Humans fear them because they rage and roar, ripping up God’s beautiful earth. Like the giants in Gulliver’s Travels, they are unaware of their ability to destroy. They can leave a landscape ravaged—destroying whole states, making them look like war zones. And yet in this Psalm, the floods take on the persona of a happy dancer.
In the fairytale, “The Sorcerer and His Apprentice,” the apprentice after having played with the Sorcerer’s magic creates a flood of water that he tries to battle with his little broom and bucket. As the waters rise from the basement of the castle, turning into a raging torrent of unstoppable water, it as if the waves turn into people, clapping their hands in jest at the poor apprentice. What name would we call the floods that clap in jest? What name would we give the flood that claps its hands for joy?
Do we, in our worship and praise of God, the King of Creation, sing like the hills and clap our hands like the floods in the way that this Psalmist describes? Or, do we let the day pass by consumed with and by our own intentions? For what will we sing and clap today?
Lord God, Heavenly King! Let us clap our hands for you this day! Let us sing a song of great JOY for your presence in our lives at this moment. Amen!
— Cindy Carroll, Former PLTS Vice President for Advancement
Psalm 98:9
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the Lord,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
This Psalm is a fragment sentence beginning with “at the presence of the Lord . . .” so I felt compelled to include verse 8 as it might make more sense to you to include it.
The image of the floods and the hills acting like people—clapping their hands and singing together for joy—is such a vivid image that I don’t mind repeating it again! Knowing how powerful Mother Nature is (and can be) impacts my thinking about the creative skills of God. However, sometimes I spend more time oooo-ing and aahh-ing about flowers, trees, mountains, and oceans than I do about the incredible creation of human beings. How often I forget (or maybe minimize) the extreme genius of the God who created us—our bodies, minds, and spirits.
This verse sets one trembling in its extremes. The Psalmist says that the Lord “is coming to judge the earth.” It’s an Old Testament framing that is hard to grasp for us 21st century whippersnappers who think we have the world figured out except for a few small flaws—which a few bombs or some other explosives and life destroying devices could take care of very easily. Not so, for who are we to judge who among us deserves life or death? The line, “for he is coming to judge the earth,” is balanced by the next one: “He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”
How many times have you wondered if someone was judging you and, instead, they treated you with righteousness and equity? It is in those moments that my fellow human friends and colleagues teach me that there is a God who loves and cares for me because I have seen it with my own eyes and experienced it in my own heart.
Lord, God, we are perfectly free in your Love. Help us to share the joy of your Love with others! Amen!
— Cindy Carroll, Former PLTS Vice President for Advancement
