thanks

A brief thought for today... This weekend we are doing something a bit different for our service - we will be singing, reflecting and meditating through the 22nd Psalm. It is an opportunity to enter the places the Psalmist takes us as well as the places Jesus Himself went through as this is a Messianic Psalm.  I was considering that this is not a Psalm we would usually use on a Thanksgiving weekend as so much of the text reflects pain, loneliness and difficulty.

 As I was preparing I was struck with two personal  insights. 1) I am never as forthright as the Psalmist in speaking out my hurts and questions and longings, rather I keep them to myself or even worse, I ignore them all together. 2) My praises are never as intentional as I see here. For me - praise and thanksgiving come from some experience or insight or feeling. In this passage there is a decision to give thanks, a decision to give praise. In one place, right after he describes the coming of enemies upon himself, he says "In the midst of the assembly I will praise You!"

In the end - perhaps this is the best weekend to acknowledge our hard times, enter those dark places of hurt, acknowledge our feeling that the Lord is distant.... and then - Give thanks and praise. As we think of Psalm 22 - it is about His sacrifice for us and even as we take communion - the Eucharist - we are reminded that it means "thanksgiving!"