March 7/Third Thursday of Lent “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert,Where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.” ~ Ps 95.8-9 It is easy to trust in God when things are going smoothly, isn’t it? When things fall our way at work, when our…
Author: Betsy Cahill
Song 19: Get Up and Bar the Door
March 6/Third Wednesday of Lent For he has strengthened the bars of your gates. ~ Ps 147.13 We have “Dry January,” to encourage people to be mindful of the boundaries they set around alcohol; now, courtesy of an enterprising New York Times reporter, we have “Flip Phone February,” intended to inspire people to reclaim their personal and professional lives by…
Song 18: Security System
March 5/Third Tuesday of Lent Remember that your compassion, O LORD, and your kindness are from of old.In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord. ~ Ps 25.6-7 One of the sources of closeness within families or among friends is the sheer predictability of behavior: the dad who invariably insists on leaving early for the airport, the…
Song 17: The Seekers
March 4/Third Monday of Lent As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God? ~ Ps 42.2-3 The rise of the so-called “Nones,” who do not identify with any religious institution, has been widely reported…
Song 16: There’s a Wideness
March 2/Second Saturday of Lent For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us. ~ Ps 103.11-12 “Two wrongs don’t make a right!” I can still hear the taunting tones in which one…
Song 15: Beneath the Surface
March 1/Second Friday of Lent When the LORD called down a famine on the land and ruined the crop that sustained them, He sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave. ~ Ps 105.16-17 The book assigned for my high school Bible History course was entitled The Book of the Acts of God (or as we irreverently called it,…
Song 14: Water, Water, Everywhere
February 29/Second Thursday of Lent [Blessed are those] who delight in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted near running water,That yield their fruit in due season, and their leaves do not wither. ~ Ps 1.2-3 My husband has remarked more than once that the surest way to…
Song 13: Words to Live By
February 28/Second Wednesday of Lent Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God. ~ Ps 31.6 “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” Is there a more succinct and powerful expression of trust in the entire Bible? Jesus uttered it from the cross as he passed from life into death, and that…
Song 12: All Rise
February 27/Second Tuesday of Lent “Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, Though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it? Or do you think that I am like yourself?To him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.” ~…
Song 10: Our End of the Bargain
February 24/First Saturday of Lent Blessed are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD.Blessed are they who observe his decrees, who seek him with all their heart. ~ Ps. 119.1-2 As we know from yesterday’s psalm, God is not a bean-counter, running up a tab of all the ways in which we go wrong…