I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. — Psalm 40:1
In Part 1 I asked the question: How do you “read†and/or pray a Psalm as an individual follower of Christ (possibly as a part of your daily practice) AND as a member of a particular Christian tradition (in corporate and/or daily practice)? And I offered the “simple” exercise of reading, praying, and reflecting upon Psalm 40 AND then comparing/contrasting this exercise with U2’s performance of 40 (Vertigo Tour Live From Chicago, 2005).
While practicing an “active”/intentional waiting for the Lord’s coming during the season of Advent, we should not miss Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology being “interwoven with the course of his life†(Eberhard Bethge 1997, viii). So it is not just going to the library and/or the bookstore to pick up copies of Bonhoeffer’s books (or those about him) and imagining what we would have done if we were him. But it is asking and living out our response to the question How shall we then live? (Daily Bible Study based on Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8. InterVarsity Press). And this is not just what we “do”, e.g., Pastor, martyr, prophet, spy (Note: part of the title of a 2011 book by Eric Metaxas), but who we are in relationship to God. Yes, we must embrace The Cost of Discipleship (1937). [Read more…] about Active Waiting . . . Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible Part 2