ChosenRebel's Blog

For many years, I have read the psalter as part of my daily devotions every month. Don’t be impressed. It really isn’t that hard, but it is a discipline. It started when I read somewhere that during the 17th century (I think), one Presbyterian group in Scotland (It might have been the Scottish Covenanters) required pastoral candidates to memorize the book of Psalms! Now that, I thought, was impressive and completely beyond my capabilities. It was also a discipline. The thought was that pastoral care of the souls of men and women needed the spiritual and psychological depth of the psalms in order to fully care for the pains, sorrows and joys a sometimes wonderful but often cruel world inflicted on the children of God. Our world is sin-stained and corrupted and needs the healing balm of the word of God to effect healing.

So I read the psalms. I read them over and over and I find my heart cared for, but I also find my heart trained in how to care more for my neighbors and brothers and sisters. I see my sorrows in the word of God but I see theirs too (my neighbors) and that helps me to care for them, and care about them. I am a better pastor than I might have been without this ritual of reading. Yet, with every month of readings, I am reminded that I am a selfish, ungodly, merciless man who lives strangely distant from the God and kingdom I espouse. These readings humble me. They remind me that I need a Savior, and always will. I need Jesus every day. And the people I care for need me to be reminded of that every day so that I might be useful to them as an instrument of the hand of God. 

So, beginning October 1, I will be writing three liturgies based on the Psalms that correspond to my reading plan in the psalms. That plan is simple. The psalm corresponding to the day, plus 30 (4x). So today’s reading, the fifth day of the month, would include Psalm 5, 35, 65, 95, and 125. The liturgies will be short devotionals designed around “worship, confession, thanks”.

• The “worship” will be an AM “call to worship“.
  
• The “confess” will be an “afternoon prayer of confession“.
  
• And the “thanksgiving” will be “an evening benediction on the day“.

I hope you will join me, even if just for the month of October. Direct message me via Email or Facebook, if you think you might. And again, I will begin the first day of October.