Connected

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, August 13th, 2023:
​Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 85

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people. Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. 

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.

R. Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

This psalm speaks to me of connectedness – the connectedness of all things – and the way that righteousness and steadfast love come together to produce peace. 

The same is true in the opposite sense, where sin and selfishness add up to turmoil … but when faithfulness springs up from the ground, the Lord indeed gives what is good. The lure and the lie of sin is that all sorts of bodily and material desires can actually be fulfilled, but the truth is that they can never be fulfilled unless they are first yielded to God and then used for good. 

God speaks peace in silence but also in the midst of storms. I think of Peter, walking on the water, his eyes fixed on Jesus. The storm distracted him, and he began to sink. I can imagine that this psalm about the love and faithfulness of God might have been committed to Peter’s memory but that, in that moment, it was probably the furthest thing from his mind as he experienced the bodily reality of walking on water amid the wind and waves. 

I remember a stormy period of my life when I was desperately trying to hear the voice of love, to bring righteousness and steadfastness to my life, to receive the salvation and forgiveness that was being offered to me. At that time, there was a lot of noise in my life and a tremendous mountain of difficulty to climb in order to find that quiet place where I could hear love speak. I honestly didn’t know where to find it … but I remember praying the simple prayer: God, if you’re real, I want to do what You say to do, so that I can have the peace that You promise. 

Many, many years have now passed since faithfulness first began to spring up from the parched soil of my life, and Love has indeed given what is good and revealed many things for me that I never realized were connected.   

In fact, I remember writing a reflection on this psalm for Ora once before – and, even then, I had no idea of some of the ways that God was working to show me His steadfast love. All I can say is that, in my experience, this psalm is true, and I pray that His glory may dwell more and more in our land. Let us hear what God the Lord will speak! Amen.

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​Lindsay Elford

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