Songs for Lent

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…

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Songs for Lent

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…

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Songs for Lent

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,…

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Songs for Lent

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…

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Songs for Lent

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…

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Songs for Lent

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.” ~…

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Songs for Lent

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…

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Songs for Lent

Song 9: Just Deserts

February 23/First Friday of Lent If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But with you is forgiveness, that you may be revered. ~ Ps 130.3-4 For some time now — ratcheted up in recent years by the turbo engines of social media — one of the ruling dynamics in our civic discourse has been the “gotcha”…

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Songs for Lent

Song 8: He Leads Me

February 22/First Thursday of Lent The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want./He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;/He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake./Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod…

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Songs for Lent

Song 7: A Fresh Start

February 21/First Wednesday of Lent A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. ~ Ps 51.10 Many of us stock our mental (or actual) pockets with “pocket verses” to remind us of the presence and love of God.  While there are plenty in the New Testament (“Come unto me, all you that labor…

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