Psalms, Praying, and Liturgy

I wrote this some time ago but the site that hosted my blog has disappeared.  Thankfully, I was able to recover some of my posts through the way back machine.  I have again pick up the daily office which for a time I had put aside.  So this post again speaks to me.

A couple of weeks ago I began a journey of following the Book of Common Prayer as a portion of my daily devotions.  One of the things I have greatly appreciated in this endeavor is the prayers that are offered as part of the Daily Office.  I use dailyoffice.org as my source for the liturgy.  They present it well and I especially enjoy the additional information they provide.  An example of this additional information would be the entry for 2 March that provided detail about the Wesley’s, John and Charles.  Over the past couple of years, I have developed a greater interest in understand what it means to call myself a Wesleyan so I also especially enjoy little insights into the Wesley’s.

On 2 March, one of the collects offered was in tribute to the Wesleys.  It read:

Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and endowed them with eloquence in speech and song: Kindle in your Church, we entreat you, such fervor, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

This collect was very beautiful in how for those of us who would call ourselves Wesleyan we need to be mindful of our own walk toward sanctification and to appreciate the walk of others.  May we truly be rekindled if we have let our faith become just glowing embers.  I am reminded of something Ravi Zacharias wrote of John Wesley once:

We are told that he preached over forty thousand sermons, wrote thousands of pages, and traveled nearly a quarter of a million miles, mostly by horseback. In his eighties he was still preaching twice a day! At eighty-six he wrote in his journal, “Laziness is slowing creeping in. There is an increasing tendency to stay in bed after five-thirty in the morning.”

As I have begun to follow the BCP, I have developed an increasing appreciation for the Psalms.  What has really impressed me about them is the way that they speak to my heart in my daily walk.  From celebrations to lament, they cover my thoughts and emotions so completely.  Perhaps this is one of the things that Wesley found so compelling in his own life.  

I also enjoy reading the “collects”.  They are short prayers, I believe offered in the conclusion of prayer time to draw together the worshipers.  I find them very beautiful and moving.  I have long considered verbal prayer to be one of my weakest areas, the collects seem to give me a good basis for starting and ending my own personal prayers, even when not verbalized.

Some in our tradition may shy away from the high church liturgy, I know for years I would have.  I thought they stifled the Holy Spirit, keeping us from a personal message from God.  What I have learned is that instead of stifling, it is for me spiritually deepening.  I appreciate that it may well not be for everyone, I think we each need to find how we can most focus on our worship of God.  For me, in this short time, I have grown such a deep appreciation for the prayers and the psalms.  I don’t “dread” my devotion time like I once did as some kind of chore.  Now, I can’t wait to see what God would speak to me through a long tradition that Mr. Wesley enjoyed so deeply.  Maybe it is the historian in me.

Oh well, it is midnight now.  I will close… mainly because the daily office for “today” has just arrived. I think I will close my day as I began it!