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[6:27] So I'm going to share with you Psalm 63. First, I'm going to share verses 1 through 8. This is a psalm of David.
[7:05] A psalm of David, when he was in the Judean desert. God, my God, it's you. I'm going to say, those words have been in the Bible, but I'm going to say, and a place, and a place, and a place to be in the Bible, and a place to belong, and a place to belong, and a place to belong, and a place to belong when they are out where it is barren and dry.
[8:51] And it's about, but his life is here. confident right now that Charlie is in the very best place possible and his doctors know what they're doing. It can sometimes feel like a desert when you don't really understand everything fully because you're not a medical professional. When you wonder, is everything going to go as expected?
[9:22] Is the surgery going to be tomorrow or the next day or the next day? And how will his little body recover from this big surgery? That's just my story. We all travel in the wilderness at times and we wonder, where's the water? Where's the green grass as we talked about with the 23rd Psalm last week? And so these words, God, my God, it's you I search for. I search for you. My whole being thirsts for you. My body desires you in a dry and tired land where I don't see water anywhere.
[10:09] Psalms of Lament make up over half of the Psalms and, you know, when you think about singing the blues and that kind of music, that's a kind of a sound or spirituals that are beautiful and moving, but have a sense of haunt to them, a sense of need and longing. Psalm 63 portrays a vast wasteland.
[10:40] That doesn't have to be geography. Sometimes that can just be your life, the way you look ahead, or maybe you see the wasteland behind you in some ways. I can't speak for you, but I'm pretty sure that almost all humans encounter a place where it's either very barren or we might describe it like a wasteland. The psalm is about trusting God to bring new life, new shoots of green growth into our dry lands. There's a lot of places where it's been so hot this summer, 130 in some places.
[11:30] My daughter said it was 115 when she went to the store to buy an ice cream cake for her fiance's birthday and wow, she got home fast and she made it. But it's hot. It's really hot. And the land wants water. The land longs for a good drenching rain. And we've seen some of that in Western New York in our own yards with our own plants. We know. And we often are called upon to trust God for where that comes from. I've known a lot of farmers over the years in churches that I've served and they so often live in this place between worry, despair, and also surrendering to God if they are people of faith, hoping for the answers, the weather, the trust, and the hope that they long for. Psalm 63 is one of those psalms that speaks from the body. My body is thirsty. My lips are singing. There's so many things and we think our soul clings. Clinging is a very human kind of a physicality. We think about a child clinging to the leg of a parent or maybe strangers come into our midst and they cling to one another because they don't know anybody. And this psalm is one of those psalms that gets into not only your head and your heart and your soul, but also your body. It's we think about this, these words, you are my God, I am searching for you. And the response being, I am searching for you. So let's let's do that in a little bit of a prayer. You are my God and I am searching for you. I search for you in the night sky. I search for you in the green grass and the trees. I am searching for you. You are my God and I am searching for you.
[14:04] I am searching for you in the hospital halls, in the doctor's hands, in the teacher's voice, in the prayer of calm and surrender and the voices of hope. I am searching for you.
[14:20] Oh God, you are my God and I am searching for you. I am searching for you in our land and our country. I am searching for you that peace might be found, that those who are broken and hurting might be healed, that those who find themselves wracked with disease or despair might be healed. I am searching for you. Maybe you could consider making that a part of how you might pray tonight, beginning with, you are my God, I am searching for you. And then share your own words of prayer and end with, I am searching for you. Amen. You could even think about it from a physical perspective.
[15:17] You are my God. I am seeking you. I am searching for you. And then you are my God. You see that? You are my God. And I am searching for you. You are my God. I am searching for you.
[15:35] Take all that's on my mind and my heart and then come to me. You are my God. And I am searching for you. I am searching for you.
[15:47] Psalm 63 and for many of the Psalms of Lament, hope comes because there's a sense that it's only a season. It's just this piece of time. It's not forever and always. And there's a sense that everything comes in a season. You probably remember that from Ecclesiastes. Whether it's a situation that we're in, whether we're in a time where we're filled with sorrow or a time when we're filled with joy, it changes. Most of us have been alive long enough to know that things change.
[16:23] Some of the sorrow doesn't completely go away. Sometimes the joy doesn't linger as long as we like, but we are in movement all the time. And we think about the 23rd Psalm and we think about prayer and maybe, maybe it's a time for you, for all of us to look at our lives, just to take some time, some quiet and look at our lives and say, what kind of season in my life am I in? Where are you? What kind of season are you in? Are you in a searching, longing, needing part of your journey? Are you in an abundant and joyful and grateful season of your life?
[17:22] Are you in a changing season of your life? I think about parents who have sent their kids to college, parents who are preparing to send their children to school in whatever way we know that.
[17:42] we think about those of us who make decisions about our elderly parents and possibly either bringing them to live with us or finding the very best way for them to stay in their own home or a place for them to move. These are all seasons of life. And then there are seasons of life of youth and hope and possibility and newness, jobs and marriages and hopefully and possibly babies.
[18:15] That is what this room was decorated with. Joy and hope and Charlie is the answer to all of that, no matter what they go through. It's a season of life.
[18:30] We all find ourselves in that place. And the question is, how might you name the season? Is there a word you might use to name the season that you find yourself in? I would say, this day, I'm in a little bit of a short season of chaos and we've gone from fear on sunday to reassurance to more fear on monday to reassurance to an even bigger sense of uncertainty yesterday and then the assurance that comes when the doctors feel like they know very well what to do it's kind of a chaotic season unsettled that's not my whole life that is a very big part of this chapter right here along with you are my god and you will not abandon me i am searching for you and yet i find you everywhere i look it's just an amazing place to be we might even write down write your own psalm write your own lament there are ways that people can do that it's a practice you could look up on the internet and say how can i write my own psalm or how do i write my own lament it's i think a helpful thing to do and i would be interested in seeing what you might come up with if you decide to do that i want to share with you a poem that was written by someone um kind of paraphrasing this psalm in some ways and making it the author's own i have been in a dry and weary land where there is no water i give you the gift of my great thirst i have been filled with emptiness seeking you fainting i give you my crazy expectation of your feast i have lain awake on my bed tossing with broken dreams i give you my watching my watching for the shadow of your wings the deepest longing the naked prayer the pause when i have no proof that there is god the lonely wait the unblessed day i lift before you this magnificent thing as my soul clings to you and then this next one is a prayer for desert times the journeys of our lives are never fully charted there they come to there come to each of us deserts to cross barren stretches where the green edge on the horizon may be our destination or an oasis on our way or a mirage that beckons and will leave us lost when fear grips the heart or despair bows the head may we bend as heart and head lead us down to touch the ground beneath our feet to scoop sand into our hands and receive what the sand would teach us it holds the warmth of the sun when the sun has left our sight as it holds the cool of the night even when the stars have faded and hidden among its grains are
[22:32] tiny seeds at rest and waiting dormant yet undefeated desert flowers they endure sometimes moistened by our very tears and by the rain that comes to end even the longest drought they send down roots and they bloom oh may we believe in those seeds and the seeds within us within you and within me may we remember in our dry seasons that we too are desert flowers where do you get your water where do you get the coolness in the heat of that barren desert dry place are there people around you who are the hands and feet of jesus he are there people you are not going toige b worldview who are been the pump if your hands open my heart would you in special telling the question i'm happy to come out to push some headphones back your exhortously know that as a mediator of that yerra quite aint in the מקutriou rock whether your hands and chv brilliance you come out in your 복 and watermelia way for the church am i look back and that if your feet are pre Katal 알 NAT at Niagara Falls and Pendleton Center,
[23:55] Pastor Scott and Pastor Sherry. I probably shouldn't say Pastor Debbie, but you know Debbie takes care of a lot of people. Mary and Heather and Adrian and Adrian and Gidget.
[24:11] They are people who are water in this pastor's dry land. They are people who help and support and step in when the pastor has to be out of town.
[24:27] My friends, the Bishop who texted me and said, is there anything I can do for you? And the district superintendent who lifts up our family in prayer.
[24:43] And then there's the friends on the ground. Who can I call? What can I do? Do you need anything at your house? Can I call you? If you want me to drive right out there, I will.
[24:55] I can bake, I can clean, I can do anything. You see, I believe that those people in the body of Christ, those are the people who are Jesus right here in our midst with skin on.
[25:16] Not spirit, but person. A person who holds hands. A person who reminds us of the words of the Psalms.
[25:26] Whether it's the 121st Psalm. Where will I go? Where will my help come from? The 23rd Psalm.
[25:37] Oh, lead me beside the still waters and let me find rest. Or today's Psalm. Or today's Psalm that cries out with need and thirst.
[25:49] And then celebrates the God who is there in the night, in the day. In the dark, in the light, in the hungry, in the full, in the thirsty, and those who have had much to drink.
[26:02] So much to be grateful for. So, it's good to be with you this night. And I know that this isn't maybe what you thought was going to happen tonight.
[26:16] And it certainly isn't as long as maybe what it could have been. But you know what? Maybe it's just enough. Maybe just as God reaches to you, and God reaches to me, and we are bound together in that faith.
[26:33] Maybe it's just enough. May the Lord be with you, as I know the Lord is with me. May you seek and find the peace of Christ, just as I hold the peace of Christ.
[26:49] May you look to the skies and the hills. May you look to the earth. And may you look to those around you, who are the people of God, Jesus with skin on.
[27:03] Go in that peace and know that you are loved. Amen. May you look to those around you, may you look to the truth if you are loved.
[27:29] o Let's go to a house, and take one of your looking and baby with salt moment and water.
[27:44] It's a sign for the sake of Mr. I've been to you, who listen to God rather a hatred of you. Without being taught to you, do you agree with us? You agree. That's good. And then, in fact,