Psalm Meditation 1238 ¶Fourth Sunday in Lent ¶March 10, 2024 ¶Psalm 116 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+116&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶In the midst of any traumatic experience we are drawn to pray for deliverance from it. We may pray for a particular type of deliverance, however, any kind will be okay. We may want to be lifted out of the experience by the scruff of our neck. Instead of that we may have a sense of peace wash over us that feels like deliverance even though we are still in the midst of the trauma. In whatever way God chooses to accomplish our deliverance we are grateful that God is at work in our lives through answered prayer. ¶The psalmist has been ill to the point of death and prays for deliverance. There has been a release from the illness and the psalmist is grateful for the renewal of health and wholeness. It may have taken some time to achieve the requested healing, to the point that the psalmist believes that those who said that God would bring healing are liars. And yet, the healing does come and the psalmist rejoices in it, and testifies to it in the gathering of God’s people. ¶God continually answers our prayers. It may not be the way we want them answered, perhaps not even in a way we can recognize immediately. God does answer. Like the psalmist, we may have made promises to God, ‘If you do this, I will do something in return.’ God perhaps appreciates the thought behind our deal making, however God does not act according to the size or elaborateness of our gifts. God acts out of love for us that knows no bounds. ¶March 4, 2024 ¶LCM