Psalm 27

God who Precedes Me,

I stared at my backyard tree for awhile this morning.  The snowy scene always draws my morning time upstairs to the window’s view.  The wisdom and mystery of this existence always seems so close when the snow covers everything.

To live in the house of the Lord, to behold the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in God’s temple – this is all I seek.

The psalmist probably did not envision me here looking at my fenced-in backyard but such is the wonder of the articulated eternal mystery.  Its truth endures and lives.  The tree sings of your steadfastness through the seasons, the snow mirrors your blanketing grace, and the stillness echoes the still small voice.  But its stationary nature is nothing like you.

You are the God who continues to come, even preceding our present struggles, coming between ours fears and our hearts to fight back the darkness within.

The enemies, the adversaries, and the foes – they are the forces within me that put a megaphone by fear’s whisper.  Their voices foster my isolation.  They promote the “uniqueness” of my troubles and use that “rarity” to keep me quiet.

I confess that too often the isolation discolors and dissipates the memories I have from my time in the land of the living.  You are the light who precedes me in my darkness with a torch to show my fears as the illusions they truly are.

One thing I ask, one thing I seek – I seek to live.

I seek to live in your beautiful world.
I seek to behold all things with awe and wonder.
I seek to inquire with curiosity.

With your light preceding me, I rise to another day with a renewed appetite for the land of the living.

Amen.