A Psalm for Our Time: Psalm 63

[Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning and welcome to one church brighton um for those of you don't know my name is kath and i'll be guiding us through our service together this morning um i haven't led for a while this feels very weird to go there's people in the room it's very exciting there's a camera up there that i need to pay attention to say hello but wherever you are whether you're watching this live in the room whether you're watching this live on your sofa whether you're rebecca managing to watch it live in addis ababa somewhere um and um whether you're watching this two weeks from now wherever you are um however you're experiencing this morning you're really welcome and it's really really good to see you um we're welcoming this place where we're here to remember the unseen realities of our lives aren't we we're not just um we could just spend a nice sunny sunday morning on the beach and remember reality there's something amazing about coming together and saying yes we're here together god's people together in the presence of god uh reminding ourselves that we're loved that we're known that we're cherished we're heard and we're seen and we're um we're part of this big story of gods in this world so whether you come full of faith full of joy full of it's a sunny weekend a bank holiday in brighton hooray whether you come with that kind of fullness or whether you come with a sense of i see i feel quite tired i've seen people again that's exhausting or i feel actually just drained by this whole experience whether you're feeling full of weariness and despair you're really welcome to come as we bring this stuff to our gods to know that we're not alone we're in this together we're going to pray a prayer together that reminds us of that that really sings to my soul of how we're in this life together the band are going to come up and play some songs for us afterwards sing along if you're at home go and hum along if you're in the room um and then as we do this let's remember how how rich is that we are together so we're going to so it's going to appear on the screen and if you're able to in the room why don't you um stand if that's something that you feel comfortable doing just to that kind of yeah we're here we're not just as spectators we're participants together in this wonder so hopefully it'll be on the screen no i have to unplug excuse our technical difficulties this feels so much less awkward now there are people in the room it feels like a kind of nice communal experience sorry everyone online make a cup of tea maybe oh thank you wonderful tech people oh hey there we are excellent so i'm going to say this stuff no you're going to we're going to say together the stuff in orange i'm going to say this stuff in black and um let's pray together we say we are the body of christ justice seeking bread breaking hymn singing risk taking body of christ baptized by one spirit we are members of one body many and varied in culture sexuality age class and ability we are members of christ's beautiful body none of us can say to one another i have no need of you for only together can we find wholeness none of us can say to one another i will not care for you for we are connected like muscle and bone if one suffers we all suffer if one rejoices we all rejoice so come in all are welcome come into worship come with your longings your questions and your fears come with your dreams of a better day one with dignity and justice for all thanks be to god who in christ has made us one let us worship god hallelujah feel free to sit as we hear the band morning we're gonna sing a couple of songs um if you do want to stand as we normally would in worship then you are welcome to in the room i know that kind of feels awkward but i went to a wedding a few weeks ago and we stood even though we weren't allowed to sing with the worship and it felt felt right in a way so um but if that feels too awkward and weird for you uh in the room then uh or at home if you're just standing up in your living room then then don't worry about that uh the first song we're gonna sing has a sort of a hummed melody line in between the verses so in the room if you want to do a little home along with us that would be lovely [Music] i see your face in every sunrise the colors of the morning are inside your eyes the world awakens in the light of the day i look up to the sky and say you're beautiful [Music] i see your power in the moonlit night where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright we are amazed in the light of the stars it's all proclaiming who you are you're beautiful you're beautiful and i see you then on a tree you bled and then you died and then he rose again for me now you are sitting on your heavenly throne and soon we will be coming home you're beautiful [Music] when we [Music] is your bride will come together and we'll sing your beautiful [Music] um [Music] when i see your face you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful i see your face you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful i see your face you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful i see your face you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful [Music] so you are a mighty river you are a flowing stream you are the fountain of abundance washing over me you are a mighty river you are a flowing stream you are the fountain of abundance washing over me be still and know i am still and know i am are a mighty river you are flowing straight you are the fountain of abundance washing over me you are a mighty river you are a flowing stream you are the fountain of abundance washing over [Music] and know i am [Music] so let the waves [Music] mercy overwhelming [Music] me [Music] and know i am i am thanks guys um before sam comes and speaks to us in the next of our series on the psalms um there's just a couple of noticy type things points for prayer um that i want to tell you about um firstly dave our minister has had his operation he had an acl i don't know what an acl is some kind of ligament torn in his knee it's been repaired and he is in recovery at home so pray for him pray for becky pray for jake and ray and that family as they recover and for dave's healing to go well um also on the monday the 7th of june it's gonna be june next month isn't it i'm very confused about what month is but it's june in a couple of days so on monday the 7th of june um there's going to be a church forum we need to have some votes on some housing issues and other things so if there's a link in your emails and we'll send the link out on social media you can find it in the usual places that's what they say isn't it and so come along at eight o'clock on the monday the seventh of june and maybe that'll be our last zoom thing maybe um but it'll be a novel experience being back on zoom for a bit um so do you think about those two things and also rebecca shakeshaft who we saw an interview of last week is out in addis ababa hopefully she's watching live hi rebecca if you are um and she is working with medaire out there for the next um six weeks or so be great to keep her and your prayers as they work on logistics of helping some displaced people there so there's a notice of stuff to pray for um we are yeah carrying on our server our series looking at the psalms um basically we've given free reign to every speaker to go pick a psalm you like or pick a song that's speaking to you right now and we've looked at various different ones and we're going to wrap it up in two weeks time and i'm doing that and i would love to know what psalms are helping you right now so this is not just me saying this and no one respond type thing i'd really want to hear from you i really want to hear from you if you have a psalm that is really kind of bringing you to life right now or is echoing your experience i'd love to hear from you email me drop me a line i promise i won't make you stand up if you don't want to i promise i won't make you do a cheese video if you don't want to um but i i would like to hear stories of how the psalms have been helping you so drop me a line that's kath onechurchbrighton.org brilliant i'm going to read the psalm today psalm 63 so if you want to grab a phone i would say grab a bible but there's it's covered so you can grab your phone and find psalm 63 if you're at home find it in a bible or your phone we're going to read psalm 63 together then i'll pray for sam and he's going to come and speak to us so psalm 63 you god and my god earnestly i seek you i thirst for you my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water i've seen you in the sanctuary i've beheld your power your glory because your love is better than life my lips will glorify you i praise you as long as i live and in your name i will lift up my hands i will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods with singing lips my mouth will praise you on my bed i remember you i think of you through the watches of the night because you are my help i sing in the shadow of your wings i cling to you your right hand upholds me those who want to kill me will be destroyed they will go down to the depths of the earth they will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals but the king will rejoice in god all who swear by god will glory in him while the mouths of liars will be silenced god thank you for sam thank you for the way this psalm has been speaking to him over these last few weeks and i pray that as he um helps us dwell in this psalm that you would be speaking to us he'd be reminding us of the reality of you you'd be connecting with that logging in our hearts to find you to cling to you to have our souls find rest in you amen just give me 14 seconds something just fell out of my bible which is a good sign isn't it oh yeah it was uh genesis sorry genesis yikes what does that say about my theology i don't know um great yes so we are indeed continuing with our journey through the psalms i'm just really i've been really really enjoying um let me get to a blank slide really enjoying this series and as i was thinking about it this week um that what led me to oh sorry was i too noisy um was that you know how a lot of psalms express something of uh kind of questioning or wondering psalms are incredibly honest they they talk about us in the lowest points of our lives they they have that ability to kind of put a finger um on the truth of human experience whatever that experience is that day there's something in the psalms probably for how all of us have come here today or are watching um today but i felt like um some of the things that i actually find harder now in the psalms are the kind of the opposite of the things that i used to find hard in the psalms so so when i used to read the psalms i used to find the bits about um loving god and being full of passion for god and being like caught up in this union with god and just like overflowing with praise that stuff i found super easy super like easy to get my head around and i it felt like it was encouraging me it felt like it spurred me on in worship or whatever um and the bits i struggled with were the psalms that expressed doubt they expressed question that expressed where is god in all this god why are you sleeping all that stuff um and what i've noticed is in recent years that feeling has changed and my relationship towards the psalms has switched and i felt like i now find it really easy to read and engage on a kind of heart level with the psalms that are more expressive of of doubt or of wonder or of goodness knows what's going on but kind of just about clinging on to a faith that says god's gonna see me through this like that i can relate to but the psalms that are just oh my gosh i just want nothing more than god i'm so caught up in god i feel like there's a bit of an maybe a distance in me to this feeling and um so weirdly enough this morning i'm going to try and talk on a psalm not that i feel like it's just oh yeah this is totally where i'm at um but i want to engage with this psalm because it's been not exactly where i feel like i'm at i hope that's okay does that feel like that's not hypocritical is that it's just good um but it's been um on my mind and to be honest as i've been thinking about that this week um this whole thing has i think it's made me feel a bit sad i don't know how your journey of faith has been and probably for all of us the reality is that all of us in this room um are going to have been on and still going on um very different journeys of faith um for a lot of us you'll feel like you're in a way more joyful place than you used to be and for a lot of people who feel like actually i've got more questions than i ever used to have and maybe that's still joyful we're but we're all um in very different places on our journeys and going through different things um but it's good to come to this together as i read these words i just want to kind of remind you of a few of them oh god you are my god earnestly i seek you my soul thirsts for you my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water i just i love i've got this thing when i talk where i tend to kind of get in a groove of what i think i want to say and can sometimes fall out of like what my heart really needs to say so i'm just going to try and do this how what my heart really needs to say um this morning and try not to be like but my notes says this um but to kind of just flow with it um and i want to spend a little bit longer just engaging with that feeling this week of in a sense kind of two things firstly um i think that over the past few years my faith has developed in a really really positive way i'm really really happy with it i feel like my the vision that i have of god now is more healthy and better and more like god than it has been before i'm sure i've still got a long way to go a lot more to do um in terms of that work but i'm really happy i feel like my faith journey has given me so many gifts like the gift of of not just seeing faith as an individual one-to-one relationship with god alone but as a corporate thing that affects us as a body that affects us as humanity that affects our planet that affects every aspect of our life that's a really healthy gift that my faith journey um has brought me um i feel like my faith journey has over the past few years has enabled me to question some of the things about my the way that faith has looked previously for me that that maybe before i would have um have only really known how to find god in those ecstatic moments of quiet time or communal worship where the band is really really going for it and you're kind of lost in it and arms are up in the air and you know for me 10 15 years ago that would have been where i was able to find god and now that's that's changed a lot i feel much more like my theology enables me to see god in all around me and everything around me and everyone around me and you know when it works it doesn't happen every day is it like let's be honest but um and and i love all those things i feel like my faith journey over the past few years has brought me a lot of gifts but as i've been thinking about this this week i think i also think that there have been some losses along the way um that as i think about my faith one of the things that i feel like i've maybe lost connection with a little bit and it took me a while to kind of come to terms with this to really notice this is this ability to feel like my faith is an intimate relationship with god and and that you know the part of that is fine part of that is healthy but if i'm honest i feel really sad about it i feel like i'm like i've lost something i don't know if that resonates with anyone maybe maybe your journey has been totally different um but for me there's this element of i used to just i used to be able to to kind of say like david like my soul thirst for god all i really want is to know god and and now even though my understanding of god i feel like is much better maybe i don't have that same intimacy that same longing um and this week was it was a bit of an interesting one of kind of having a bit of a reckoning um with that grief with that kind of with that feeling and so that's kind of what i want to engage with this morning is how do we come to the psalms um and what maybe particularly for me how do i come to the psalms and have the right amount of like i want to read psalm 63 and i still want it to be my teacher like i still believe that the that the story that we get in scripture is one where where god is a god who is fundamentally love and at his at the core of who god is is nothing other than love and love is is is never just this distant thing that i think about and and i like to have it over there love is something that is to be engaged with is to be received is to be felt in some way is to be responded to and so i want to kind of like i want to have that i want psalm 63 to be my teacher i want to come um with that expectation that that i can have this one-to-one relationship with god but the flip side is i don't want that to to narrow me into a my faith is about just me and god does that make sense my faith is about just feelings my faith is about just um experiences or being caught up in worship but then that just you know doesn't affect how i live does that make sense and so i hope you're kind of getting i come to this today with all these kind of i want to balance all this stuff i want i want to anyway i'm going to end up talking around the introduction 15 times if i'm not careful um but does that make sense to anyone in the room you guys can't put your hands up but these guys can do is anyone kind of do you feel like you understand roughly what i'm trying to say great then let's think about this together um over the past few years you've probably heard me say this before um but i've been founding of but i've been finding um of particular help to me as i think through my spiritual journey um the writings of the mystics and the thinking of the mystics incredibly helpful if you don't um if that word just sounds bizarre to you then that's totally fair enough but basically the mystics are those in our tradition of faith um who discover kind of a few things of god um firstly the mystics are are kind of these writers through the history of the church these thinkers these poets these artists who find that god is simultaneously completely unknowable completely impossible to pin down completely like darkness completely other and yet completely knowable completely relatable and completely like heart to heart so the mystics you find you find these writings um where these people have like can simultaneously say no words that i could ever use will come close to describing the reality of god and yet i meet with god like a lover meets with the beloved like there's this closeness there's this union even in my unknowing even in my questioning um and there's this particularly helpful phrase that i want to think about as i think through this this issue um today which is one that john of the cross uses and is kind of familiar across these writings through these centuries um and saint john of the cross writes about something he calls the dark knight of the soul have you heard that expression before probably a lot of you have um the dark knight of the soul now for john of the cross that that dark night of the soul meant a whole bunch of different things one of which was being physically beaten day in day out which is you know fair enough like you're having a bad day at that stage aren't you it's like not a good thing that's a that's a pretty dark thing to happen to someone um but for these writers for them for the mystics in our faith for in fact probably for everyone who's walked in faith for any length of time the dark knight of the soul refers to that feeling of kind of felt distance from god of felt absence of god kind of felt confusion like when you when you're praying and praying and you you just feel like your prayers are being absorbed by the paint on your wall you know like when it when um when you're desperately trying to kind of see god in others or see god in nature and you just feels like you're forcing the issue and there's you're getting nothing back and it's just you in the conversation and and no one else that's the dark knight of the soul and now i don't want to say that what i'm experiencing right now is exactly what some john of the cross was experiencing that feels a bit presumptive but i think there's something in that experience that probably all of us can relate to um what do we do with our faith when it feels like songs of ecstasy like the one that we've just read just feel so far away or where it feels like the god of love that we claim to believe in just feels so other and so unrelatable and so distant and and i guess where i begin with those questions is like well how do you fix it how do you solve it how do you get back to you know the intimate i think of like the the writing of um saint john to the churches in revelation where he's like he says to the church in ephesus you've forgotten your first love and you know how many of us heard youth talks on um on this when we were like younger or something where a preacher would be like you've forgotten your first love turn back and what they really mean is respond more in worship like remember your love for god spend time in prayer every day really invest in this stuff how do you kind of go back and sort it out and fix it um but really i think there's something much more beautiful than that i think that and what the what the writers who speak about the dark knight of the soul say is that what what this experience does for you is actually something else if you let it is actually something better if you let it than just how do you get back to what you had when you were 15 or how do you get back to what you have when you first started following jesus or something like that um what happens next is can actually be way way better there's just a few things i want to talk about around that some of you will notice that a few days ago i put um very much basically what i've just said up on facebook as a post on our connection airtime of coronavirus page and that's led some really really really beautiful conversations over the last few days i'm really grateful to those who've called or messaged or commented and engaged with me on that so thank you so much and i kind of want to use some of those reactions some of what people fed back in to inform what we do next um if this was a normal sunday service what i would desperately want to do at this point is have you share a little bit with each other about like how have you found this stuff and how do you find this and what you know what do you have to speak back into this um but we're going to kind of do that but just from a few days ago and kind of have that fed in here um and there were kind of three really key lessons there's always three there's three um there actually are three i think um really helpful lessons for me as i've thought about this in the last few days and as i've kind of come to terms with this in me over the last um little while um the first thing that basically everyone said on as they responded to me on facebook or messenger or whatever um that i think has just been so so crucial was just a response of kindness just a response of how do we sit in that space non-judgmentally or basically saying sam it's okay that you feel like that and that might sound very trivial but it's actually massive to me because as soon as i started realizing and this is probably you know actually years old as an issue for me as soon as i started realizing this is how i feel the initial response that i get is to kind of judge myself for it to be like well i shouldn't feel like that if i feel distance from god i shouldn't feel distance from god if i feel like um like like maybe i'm not so full of of that kind of heartfelt oh god i just love you thing that i used to have then i need to suppress that i need to hide it i need to particularly in church i need to bury it i need to not particularly as a leader in a church for crying out loud like i need to come up here and be like now listen i've been very zen this week in all my quiet times and i've fully experienced divine union every day you know like how do i pretend um and and the temptation to be like yeah i just i need to hide i need to and actually it's been so so just beautiful to come to terms with the fact that it's okay isn't that cool like just such a simple thing of people writing to me um uh west i've got tasha said this um oh no i haven't actually quoted it on here that's okay um but um definitely tasha definitely other people said to me just i just don't don't beat yourself up just be kind to yourself and actually that rings so so true um of the psalms doesn't it like the psalms if they are anything at all is they are poems of honesty in relationship they're poems of the outflow of the heart which means if you want to live a spirituality of the psalms you don't need to pretend to be like the psalms because that's the opposite of the psalms the psalms of the space where the same psalmist can you know on one day say my god my god why have you forsaken me where are you and in another day say the lord is an ever-present help well which one is it but we know it's we know the experience is both don't we or god can you can say of god why are you sleeping and and then in another place say god never sleeps well which one is it but the psalms are fundamentally not about doctrine that you have to live up to or experiences that you must share they are fundamentally about honesty which means if i need to have any if i want to have anything like the spirituality of the psalms i cannot begin by being dishonest with myself or with my church isn't that interesting isn't that so great and if we want to be true to this then we hold a space together where we can be where we can hold honesty and ironically at that point of actually opening up to how i'm really doing and how i'm really feeling and where i feel like god really is and all this kind of stuff that actually puts me in a position most able to receive love most able to come to terms with god again in a new way because i'm i'm open so that's the first thing in all of this in all of our spirituality and all of our journeying whether we're on top of the mountain or in the darkest valley let's be a space where we can hold honesty and where we can hold each other in kindness and truth because that is if anything that is what the psalms um urge us towards um the second thing um is that saint john of the cross speaks about the dark knight of the soul and as feeling like the worst thing in the world that actually turns out to be a gift and the way he speaks about it like this is he he kind of talked i'm i'm paraphrasing a someone explaining this to me by the way so it's kind of this is third hand but i i think still good um so definitely receive it but um but also then go and read some john of the cross um but he speaks about the dark knight of the soul um as this kind of experience a profound loss so he says early on in your spiritual life or kind of early on in your awakening to god what tends to happen is you get these glimpses of divine love and it might be as you're re you're reading scripture or as you're worshiping with other people or as you're out in a field or as you um experience the love of another person or in something or in art or in music or whatever you get these things that wake you up that are like whoa that's that's divine love and probably all of us are here in this room because we've had some kind of awakening some kind of moment of god and it's beautiful and it's lovely and it's and you you begin to bear witness to it and then and then he says over time what happens is sometimes what god does this is where theologically i struggle with what i find this interesting but i think it may well be true um what god does is almost seem to withdraw like it seems to be quite a common um faith journey thing for the for the high moments of kind of early faith or youth or maybe it's not just about earliness but that the kind of the high moments for for those to kind of seem to to go away and then again we kind of get that temptation how do i get back there how do i get back there how do i get back there but what what john says is the night becomes a gift because what god is doing is almost withdrawing to draw you deeper into something not less into something but deeper into something so what does it mean to say um what if what if the dark knight what if the the feeling of loss of god is actually god's way of saying do you know what that was don't settle there don't settle where you were like if if you just kept kept experiencing that kept having that kept kind of feeling like that about god maybe you would never move forwards but in some ways the withdrawing pushes you into something new um first and john of the cross what it looked like was being beaten and feeling like god was god had left him was feeling like he'd lost all his friendships feeling like everything had been taken away from him and then what flowed out of him was this experience of of longing and love in poetry and his mystical writings came out of that dark night does that make sense i feel like i'm waffling i'm am i waffling a bit there's some there's some different facial expressions happening joss says i'm doing great okay thanks joss um spirit of encouragement at the back um yeah i feel like maybe that's true of david as well so you think about this passage where is he writing it he's writing it in the desert he he's he's gone through this process of being pushed away from all the safe of being pushed away there's this beautiful vest where he's like i i i saw you in the sanctuary i beheld your power and your glory like i've known you in the safe space i've known you there but now in the desert there's this thirst and i want it i want more i want more um and i want more um yeah i had this lovely message from rick um and i think he was chatting to you about it as well wasn't he um and just saying like that the phrase he used was maybe god sometimes even wants to kind of go cold turkey on us to lead us into something deeper or do you remember jesus says unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains just a seed but if it dies that almost a whole faith journey what if it's this journey of death and resurrection what if it's this journey of loss and then refining of losing and and finding um yeah i all that is very i've sat over these notes for hours this week being like nope don't know how to say that nope don't know how to say that but i'm kind of hoping that along the way bits of things might be like resonating with you or might be helping with you with you helping you um but we'll see um and yeah so what that what that gives me is just this traumatic tremendous sense of hope that as well as being kind of kind to myself in the stage where i'm at at the moment i can also trust that god isn't actually absent in it that maybe what he's doing is something new maybe what he's leading me into is something not just slightly less good than what i had but something more meaningful something deeper something richer something fuller something that i would never have got if i'd stayed in the shallow end where of where i was does that make sense um and so i just what i want that to be to be a bit of encouragement and the third thing gosh i talk for a long time um even when i don't know what to say um the third thing really is is was also a very kind of common thing in in the feedback that i got is that what comes out of that what might come out of that is a deeper awareness that god really really really really is in all in everything that god isn't like i know i said this earlier but you know i think i still need to learn this lesson of of what it means to do a journey with god where god is to be found in all things in everywhere i was chatting to um john weaver on the phone yesterday and he was talking about um walking the camino de santiago which sounds brilliant like this pilgrimage path um through i actually don't know much about it but like through spain i think it's through a bunch of different places yeah good yeah they're great apparently it's long and um like 500 miles and he walked it over a month and he said the the impact that it had on him to set out on this journey um where at the beginning he was like i'm making a commitment to choose to see the image of god in everyone that i meet to choose to see the dignity of god in everyone i meet to choose to see everyone as a kind of a teacher that i can learn from and he said that intention transformed him i thought that was such a beautiful beautiful thing um if i could have my laptop up um tasha said this she said i know that when i've been closest to god is when i've been away from the distractions of life modern life in all its business makes it hard to completely find a time away to really reach out and listen i feel god and see god in people around me and things they do or say because i intentionally look for it i feel god in nature because i look and feel for it i feel and hear god in the quiet times because i need to and i want to and i love that i love that kind of intentionality like how how do i make a space just to look for god everywhere like for david okay i've discovered god in the sanctuary i discovered god over there can i find god in the desert can i find god here can i find him where there's no water flowing can i find him where there's no food to eat can i find him where my friends hate me can i find him in in all and i just i love that expectation i feel like um you know none of this stuff is a surprise probably to us in this context i feel like we're really good at as a church and talking about how do you find god in nature how do you find god in in each other um but i just felt like that's actually such a such a key thing for me that i still need to learn that that is not a token lesser form of spirituality does that make sense that isn't a second best that's literally where god is and i just i found that so releasing there's this poet that again you may know that i quite like um called roomie um and it's the time where i quote roomie i feel like a year ago it was honorary now and every week and now it's roomy every week um he writes this at the end of one of his poems and in this poem he's talking about a bunch of people in a town that are frantically looking for god um and they're so that everyone's running out of their houses and they're all looking around they're trying to say like where where is he where's the spirit where's what's going on where's god where's god where's god um and no one can hear each other over all the noise of everyone searching around and there's this weird bit where he's like the cat burglar is there too i don't know but anyway but there's kind of there's all this chaos of everyone bustling around and and for all the noise none of them are actually able to see clearly none of them are actually able to listen to the quietness none of them are actually able to perceive god in the darkness um and he yeah there's this beautiful phrase where he says the moon the full moon is inside your house um like as in the you you know people go outside looking for something he's actually like no he's already in and he says this lo i am with you always which is a quote from jesus means that when you look for god god is in the look of your eyes in the thought of looking nearer to you than yourself or things that have happened to you there is no need to go outside and i just i find that stunning and and just so deeply mine-able as a concept um that that in some ways even even the longing that i feel even the the that feeling of of missing something that feeling of of looking that feeling of of loss is a response to god is a sign of god is in some way the presence of god um there's no need to look anywhere else there's no need to go outside it's here it's with me is god is here anyway that was all very uh like a bumpy journey wasn't it but that's fine um i just i think then what that leaves us with and cath's gonna lead us in a really beautiful reflection on this song um in just a little moment but i think kind of what that leaves me with a feeling of how do we do this as a church like i kind of came in i came into this talk thinking that my talk would be how do we as a church be a place where we help everyone to really feel that intimacy with god to really kind of you know feel that fire burning in us and and i think there's definitely a part there's a there's a part of that there's definitely a part of that but i think really what the call is on us as a church is how do we be a space that holds each other in in the dark night or on in the lightest day on the highest mountain or in the deepest valley how do we how do we be a job how do we be a church whose job isn't to fix each other's spirituality not that i think that most of us would say that it is but to journey together through this stuff i just want to read another few verses from that psalm as a way of closing and um in it what i hope that we hear what i hope that i hear what i hope that you hear is just a renewed sense of tenderness and a renewed sense of okay and maybe you're you're in a position where you just hear these words and everything in you lights up that's so great that's so beautiful that's so brilliant maybe you hear these words and you're in a place where nothing within you lights up that's so great that's so brilliant it's so amazing and both of those are part of the journey let me read again and then i'll let kath do this reflection oh god you are my god earnestly i seek you my soul thirsts for you my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water i've seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory because your love is better than life my lips will glorify you i will praise you as long as i live and in your name i will lift up my hands my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods with singing lips my mouth will praise you on my bed i remember you i think of you through the watches of the night because you are my help i sing in the shadow of your wings my soul clings to you my soul clings to you your right hand upholds me smoother transitions this time we are gonna respond um to all that we're just having a moment of time of of reflecting um in a kind of um hopefully uh i don't think what the word is more resonant way with a deeper way with those words just having a bit of time to mull on the words and to let them um permeate into our souls i've got some pictures and reflections and phrases from the psalms that will appear on the screen and then i found these prayers coming off the back of these these phrases from the psalm on a website called unhurried living which sounds lovely doesn't it i'd love to be an unhurried life um so um this is really kind of an offering for us to to sit and listen and see what what kind of phrase jumps out of you that that really expresses where you are with this psalm um and with god right now um as sam said we'll be in totally different places so that's great um some of this you'll go oh that sounds horrible and some of us will go oh that's exactly me and god right now and hold on to that bit that goes oh yeah that's actually me and god right now um and take it away with you into the week um into tomorrow morning into the um the mess and the stuff of our lives this is stuff for all of us to delight in and cling on to do we have yeah have laptop issues again that's right that's right never mind we um we'll just miss out on the pretty pictures i'll read through these um these phrases from the psalm these uh these words these reflections these prayers afterwards and we can grab on those bits that that sing to our souls so let's um just still ourselves and get ourselves into a place of um of feeling grounded feel the the um the ground beneath our feet um take some breaths and um let's pray god you are my gods earnestly i seek you my soul thirsts for you my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water lord you really are my god i'm coming to seek you as earnestly as i know how my soul is thirsty for you alone even my body aches to know you more deeply this parched place through which i journey only intensifies my longings i can't find refreshment or satisfaction anywhere else you're my only hope right now is this your plan is this desert a place where you bring focus and clarity to my desire realizing that it's you alone that i want i've seen you in the sanctuary beheld your power and your glory god from this desert place i can easily remember times when i've sensed your presence felt your power was humbled by your overwhelming glory i remember the intimacy of your presence in those private holy moments i've known moments when when there was no one and nothing in this world but you and me oh god i long for you my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods with singing lips my mouth will praise you on this dry and weary land i have hope that you will in good time fully satisfy my deepest truest longings i think of fine meals at fancy restaurants that i've enjoyed in the past these were fast food next to the richness of your life in me satisfy my soul with yourself on my bed i remember you i think of you through the watches of the night what captures my attention to the long dark nights of my life how do i keep the darkness from invading my heart and mind i look to you be my vision through the watches of the night my soul clings to you your right hand upholds me as this desert place exposes empty everything in creation to which i cling i realize more fully that my soul longs to cling to you alone i cling to you as a little one clings to their parent as you uphold me thank you oh god make this pro psalm prayer more and more part of our assumptions our expectations and our hopes please continue help us to find satisfaction in you alone we're going to sing to end our service together um that will say the grace but um let's uh let's um listen and remember the the wonders and the goodness of the god we cling to thanks samucath it's been really enjoyable over the last few weeks um hearing from the psalms and uh it's given us a bit of a chance to um look back over uh songs that maybe we haven't done for a while um and uh songs that carry the themes of those psalms um and uh i was talking about leading for for psalm 63 uh with my small group earlier in the week and this song came up um so perhaps i haven't done it for a while but if uh if you're in church in the 90s then it'll probably be familiar lord i come to you let my heart be changed renewed flowing from the grace that i found into you [Music] and lord i've come to know the weaknesses i see in me will be stripped away by the power of your love [Music] hold me close let your love serve [Music] draw me to your side [Music] and as i wait i'll rise up like [Music] your spirit leads me on in the power of your love lord unveil my eyes let me see your face to face the knowledge of your love as you live in me and lord renew my mind as your will unfolds in my life in the living every day by the power let your love surround me and bring me draw me to your side [Music] and [Music] [Applause] [Music] of your love amazing thank you sir lovely memories um we my laptop's died and we're going to say the grace together if i can remember it um and if you can remember it's um and then we're gonna head on our way thanks for being with us this morning um it's lovely to see you in the room lovely to be with you on screens um but let's say the grace together so the grace of our lord jesus christ and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with us all evermore amen you

Channel: One Church Brighton

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Keywords: one church brighton, onechurch, 1 church, church, baptist, social, community, sussex, brighton, 1 church brighton, florence road, florence road baptist church, brighton baptist church, uk, england, christian, christianity, charity, ocb

Id: nNlKxBVt3A4

Length: 71min 35sec (4295 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021