Psalm 40 - A Bridge To...

First off, I am feeling better today. Yay! Still not back to 100% but definitely better. On my way back home from the church today, I stopped at the labyrinth I intended to stop at yesterday.

Lisa’s labyrinth - the labyrinth that was created using memorial funds that people donated in her memory. I’ve shared about visits to this labyrinth several times before (Here and here among several others). As I walked it today, I read today’s Psalm aloud - Psalm 40...one that I cannot read without hearing U2’s song 40 run through my heart. Here are a couple versions of it - the original from an early album and then a live version from their last concert at Sphere in Las Vegas...

As I walked, read, prayed, and heard this ancient song I especially centered on the opening lines of the Psalm...here shared in Fischer’s version

I waited patiently for you
And you leaned toward me
And heard me
And raised me up from the pit
From the mud, from the clay
And set my foot upon a rock
So that my step was firm
And put a new song on my lips
Your song
That many may hear it with awe
And have confidence in you

I love what he did here. He took the Psalm and moved it from a 3rd person (about God) and instead turned it to God. It isn’t “I waited paitently for the Lord” but instead directed to God, “I waited patiently for you...you leaned toward me... your song (the new song on my lips)...” To me, it makes the Psalm sing in a new way.

One thing that I have noticed each time at Lisa’s Labyrinth was this little bridge a little ways back into the woods behind the labyrinth. I had seen it each time but never walked back there. Until today.

I was expecting to find another path back there but instead it simply crossed over the little creek and there was a bench back there and woods that would be a bit of a challenge to walk through. It was just a beautiful bridge to a quiet, still, and protected place. I didn’t sit down but returned to the labyrinth. But it is the bridge that I am remembering, now several hours later. Is there something of these opening words of this Psalm in that bridge - taking me from an unsettled place (from the mud and clay - or the “bog” as another translation puts it) to a place of safety and security (set my foot upon a rock so that my step was firm).

And then there’s that song. The ancient song in the Bible. The set-to-music Psalm by U2. The reimagined one by Norman Fischer. All of them singing the same thing - waiting upon God to meet us, bring us to safe places, and give us this song that we can hear with awe and come to trust and confidence.

But there’s one more part to this...The Psalm continues from there to speak of the path to follow but also a call to God for protection. In U2’s version of the song, it feels like they not only pull from Psalm 40 but also Psalm 13 where the Psalmist asks four times in the opening verses, “How long...?” about feeling abandoned, in distress, in danger, or in sorrow. So the Psalm is not only a statement of the presence of God but also a call to ask, “How long” until someone experiences this presence and protection. There are many for whom I offer up all the versions of Psalm 40 today - people who feel they have crossed that bridge and found that place of God’s presence but also those who are longing to find it.

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

---

PS - Scout was on full hunting-dog alert this afternoon. I don’t know what she saw out in the bushes but she was locked in…