psalms on Refuge

God of nurture and care, You seek to gather us together as a mother hen gathers her chicks. You seek to be our refuge in times of trouble. As we have gathered together today, draw us closer to You, de...

God of love you are our only strength, our only refuge, our only hope. Amid all the voices of fear in this world we turn to you for your grace. Speak to us and bring us safely under your wing. We pray...

Faithful God, our Father, Lord and Counselor: By your grace you know our names before we are even born. By your grace you call us your own sons and daughters. By your grace you give us an eternal purp...

Lord–in the words of the Psalmist,“You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations,” our safe place to run to, and the One who opens the door when we knock–no matter what. Because of Your ...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? A Song Celebrating the Return from Babylonian Exile The book of Ezra recounts the return of 50,000 exiles and their entourage from Babylon after Cy...

Especially in the Hebrew Bible, wilderness is the privileged site where God comforts the Hebrew people or their representatives at times of crisis in their lives. In the wilderness God calls and leads...

Advent 2023: Make some noise! Echoes of a Dream AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? A Song Celebrating the Return from Babylonian Exile The book of Ezra recount...

Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.

This prayer claims the promises of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, on behalf of a person or group in need. Fill in names, pronouns, and details as best suits the situation. Good, Good Shepherd Your word...

The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then di...

The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you ...

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu...

Contemplation is waiting patiently for the gaps to be filled in, and it does not insist on quick closure or easy answers.

Because of this we have hope: Two men look out through the same bars One sees mud, one sees stars.

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. (Spoken by Galadriel)

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea “oceans.”  The point is to relate our present-day affinity for the ocean, seashore, and beach...

Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.

Almost as important as oxygen for human survival is hope. According to Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, “Since my early years as a physician, I learned that taking away hope is, to most people, like pronounci...

Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality.

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgivenes...

Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.

Hope is the physician of each misery.

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

You know all about us–our weakness, our failing, our sin; and you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for whom it was hard to get ou...

God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your power...Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the facing of this hour. Lord—we need You...today, tomorrow and forever. We need you to heal those ...

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchan...

In the desert outside of Tucson, scientists dreamed up an experiment to re-create the conditions of earth for space, when and if the earth could not be made great again. The biosphere was a little wor...