Lent, 2024: Lent Week 2
Throughout Lent, The Garden will be practicing consistent rhythms of daily prayer through a movement that invites participation in personal devotional time. Each practice will look at a psalm from the Revised Common Lectionary, both as an invitation to prayer and a guide for it. These practices are repeated daily throughout the week, include questions for reflection, and will be supplemented by a weekly podcast called Lent in Conversation, available on our site or through our regular podcast feed. The “Reflection” component below and much of the overall movement has been adapted from Practicing the Way’s four-week Prayer practice, available for free on their site. We invite you to join us as we pray together this week through the words of Psalm 22.
Life and its loss are what bind all people in every nation, culture, and time. All face and finally experience the threefold loss: of physical vitality, of the possibility that family and friends can sustain and relieve, of a conscious relation to the cosmic power that creates and maintains existence. In the passion of Jesus, that threefold loss is undergone and he dies. But his resurrection is the signal to all who dread and undergo the threefold loss that death itself has been brought within the rule of God.
JAMES L. MAYS
RHYTHM
Plan on setting aside at least twelve to fifteen minutes at the start of each day this week. (If you already observe such a practice, consider increasing that time for this practice throughout Lent.) Find a space that feels inviting and open, an uncluttered place in your home or outside of it. Put away distractions. Set digital devices to Do Not Disturb. Take a deep breath and rest. Open your time with this prayer from Thomas à Kempis:
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Incline my ear to your words, and let your speech come to me as dew upon the grass. If I hear your voice, let me not be condemned for hearing the word and not following it, for knowing it and not loving it, for believing it and not living it. Speak then, Lord, for your servant listens, for you have the words of eternal life. Speak to me to comfort my soul and to change my whole life; in turn, may it give you praise.
Amen.
Take time to read through Psalm 22 in its entirety, pausing between the sections indicated below to seek God in specific ways through its words and invitations:
You have likely heard the opening of this psalm in the words of Jesus, dying on the cross. For many, to speak to God in the desperation of verses 1-2 feels like a faith-weakening act, coming as it does from a weakened body and spirit. But Jesus demonstrates for us that bringing pain and confusion and sorrow to God is not a strike to faith but a stoke to it. We all experience pain in this life. Find the courage here to search for God in a moment of sincere and desperate prayer.
God feels absent when His character and His care seem at odds. In verses 3-11, David is writing with a knowledge of God’s gracious working in his past, even from birth, and the history of his people. Though God’s presence in the past casts present worries in a stark contrast, it is that working in the past that grounds any hope in the future. It can be difficult to express gratitude in times of sorrow, but thanksgiving is the doorway to hope. God has saved. God can save again. Spend a moment now recounting the faithfulness of God up to this moment of heaviness. Remember His character.
In verses 12-21a, the psalmist presents vivid pictures of grief. Each of his physical, situational, mental, and spiritual pains are named before God ahead of a final, desperate plea for salvation. There is a kind of healing that comes with naming our sorrows, especially in prayer. Though we do not have control over our circumstances, we can set our pain in God’s hands. Here in prayer, name the griefs of your life before God. Pray as the psalmist does. O, Lord, do not be far away. Come quickly. Save me.
The psalm concludes in verses 21b-31, with a kind of “time jump.” It seems the psalmist’s prayers have been answered. Like all psalms, this was composed for worship in a gathering of God’s people, but it is not an invitation to skip past pain or fast forward through the process of lament. Instead, the psalmist provides a picture of God’s faithfulness to encourage ours, in the very darkness that comes to threaten it. This is a vision of hope in a time where it’s needed most. The final line, “He has done it,” is an echo from the future, but it is also a statement we have been invited to pray here and now, looking back at God’s work. As you conclude this time, rest on God’s promises. Look ahead to what Jesus’ Kingdom will be, and as you do, hold to what it has brought already to your heart.
Finally, spend a few minutes in silence, listening to God speak to you, through these words of scripture or in your heart. To end your time, pray this prayer from Saint Augustine:
O God, full of compassion, I commit and commend myself to you, in whom I am, and live, and know. Be the goal of my pilgrimage, and my rest by the way. Let my soul take refuge from the crowding turmoil of worldly thought beneath the shadow of your wings. Let my heart, this sea of restless waves, find peace in you, O God.
Amen.
REFLECTION
Prayer is primarily about listening. God initiates the experience, and we take Him up on the awesome invitation to hear His voice. The beauty of prayer is in realizing that the opportunity to listen does not end with a spoken “amen” but continues unbroken as we walk in step with the Spirit.
Sometimes God speaks in different ways. He might remind you of a Bible verse or passage. He might bring someone or something specific to mind. If you are new to the experience of prayer, keep in mind that when the Lord speaks to us it is always consistent with what the Bible reveals about His ways and character, and that often when He speaks, we know it's His voice because of how contrary to our flesh and weakness His words sound.
Write down what comes to mind and heart as you pray this week and reflect on Psalm 22. What has God told you, through His word and in your heart? What has he reminded you about? What has he challenged in you? Who or what has He drawn you to?
In addition to these reflection prompts, we think that this psalm ties in well with the fruit of gentleness. We are “prone to wander,” as the hymn says, and prayers of confession, like Psalm 22, are a way to anchor us to the words and ways of God. His Spirit in us means we have strength to resist temptation and grace in recovery where we stumble. In your time during this practice and the rest of the day that follows it, consider the following questions:
How have prayer and fasting this week challenged you in cultivating the fruit of gentleness?
How have prayer and fasting helped you in cultivating the fruit of gentleness?
For a deeper dive into this psalm and this fruit of the Spirit, listen to the Lent in Conversation supplemental podcast episodes, available in our Resources tab above or in our regular podcast feed.
Find more curated resources, links, devotionals, and more to help you as pray this week under the Resources tab above.
