A prayer for today – “O God, I recognize and offer to you the places of wilderness in my life right now. Come with creative power and generous charity to set a table of nourishment in the wilderness. Amen.”

Whenever I read the Psalms in Hebrew Scripture I recognize the same delights and disappointments, the same agony and ecstasy, the same confusion and anger that often runs deep in my own soul.
I believe that whatever one’s expression of faith and experience of spirituality, the words of the Psalmist resonate, encourage and challenge.

Today I read these words in Psalm 78 “Can God set a table in the wilderness?” (verse 19). These words succinctly and eloquently articulate the cry of many a human heart in so many different situations.

The human condition is beset with experiences of wilderness – physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially and socially. As I write “experiences of wilderness” I feel I need to breathe after each one. These “experiences of wilderness” are so very common. And what do we want, we want “a table set in the wilderness”.

A table – something extraordinary and lavish, not something that is barely adequate but something that is generous and stylish.
A table set – after a while in the wilderness we find ourselves almost powerless, with just sufficient strength to maintain but not sufficient to expand. To have such a table “set” for us is balm to the psyche.

This lavish generosity of our Creator is well expressed in the prayer below containing again and again words and phrases of spiritual largesse…

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.