Excerpt from “First Fruits: Meditations for Personal Worship” (pgs 120-121)

Prayer of Preparation: Praise the Lord, O my soul.

Scripture Reading : Psalm 146
1Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing
praises to my God all my life long.
3Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom
there is no help.
4When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.
5Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
6who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is
in them; who keeps faith forever;
7who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives
food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts
up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the
righteous.
9The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds
the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked
he brings to ruin.
10The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for
all generations. Praise the Lord!

Meditation: In tense election times, remembering that God is and
always will be more powerful than the results of an election
is important for continuing our call to love God and love our
neighbors. Psalm 146 is a great help in keeping our focus
as children of God and our purposes as the body of Christ.
“Praise the Lord” sandwiches a litany of reasons to glorify
God. Creation, faithfulness, justice, food, freedom, sight,
confidence, love, protecting the vulnerable, and bringing
ruin to the wicked are all reasons to praise the Lord. To
recognize these actions of God, however, the psalmist tells
us that we must set aside our trust in the wrong entities.
Trusting in princes (which is a political or empirical term) is
not appropriate because their plans and lives are temporary
as compared to God’s plans and actions which are forever,
“for all generations.” Staying focused on loving God and
loving our neighbors sounds like “Praise the Lord!” and
looks like striving for justice, feeding the hungry, protecting
the vulnerable, and so on. Election results may bring
temporary joy or dread, whichever it may be, but our focus
as children of God is praising God and loving our neighbor
regardless.

Prayer Prompt: Dear Lord, show me where my focus needs to be.

Hymn: “I’ll Praise My Maker” (Glory to God #806; Chalice Hymnal #20; or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7BB6kArmoI

Benediction: Today, focus on loving God and loving others.
Amen.