Monday, January 19, 2026

Ordinary Food - Often Forgetting the Best

 


When I hear something new with recent hymns, I wonder, "Why can't they sing the greatest hymns?" People love great food - why not great music about the Christian Faith?

There are many kinds of addiction, but precious few are the best. Repetition of the best is good and long-lasting. I just heard a German Lutheran (older than I) reciting his German worship music from his youthful days in this area. The children attended worship in German, then English in Sunday School, and finally everyone at the English worship service. 

I favor repetition, so I repeat Psalm 91 out loud each day. I am also looking at other Psalms that have very special meaning. As I have written more than once, the phrases of the entire Bible are eerily close to Revelation - they renew at the birth of Jesus and move toward the ending (note Revelation 12 until the finish).

+++

GJ - KJV Psalm 88 - Yes, I have often felt this way.

88 O lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:

Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;

For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: Lord, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

10 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

13 But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

14 Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?

15 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

17 They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.

18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.