Return to the cross and hear the anguished cry of Jesus as he begins to pray this psalm. The price of the outpoured Spirit was the blood and water from Jesus’ side.

Your most desperate cry of suffering is nevermore a cry alone. The Spirit of God weeps within you, groaning your prayer even before it enters your mind. Verse after verse pours out the anguish of a God who experiences your pain, giving images and names to it. The psalm recalls the pain of Job from Lent—this time prayed by the Son of God who draws your prayer to saving completion in the Holy Spirit.

In verse 21, there is a profound shift in awareness. God has in fact not forsaken David, Jesus, and you, but has answered. Waves of confidence and joy rush into the soul as immense hope returns.

Some themes in music must be exhausted, before others come.

Psalm 22

What are Bible Breaths? Learn More
Example: My groanings reaching your heart. 1

We continue to follow the Psalms in numerical order.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

Each day of your life in God flows into the next, in counterpoint—the name given in music to independent melodies moving together in harmony.

Today’s litany of proverbs develops inward, personal reflections in counterpoint to yesterday’s sobering passage from Isaiah. The Sunday-to-Friday readings in the one hundred and fifty-six weeks in the three-year cycle are stitched together into themes set against each other in counterpoint. Though the Sabbath Torah readings thread their way through the year according to lunar and not solar cycles, still basic areas of the Torah are wedded to the rest of the week, making a rich variety of God’s Word against which your life itself is in counterpoint.

Each proverb is set in twofold counterpoint movements. Feel this music of the Spirit, either challenging you to change, or soothing your soul, according to your need.

Proverbs 13

What are Bible Breaths? Learn More…
Example: You fulfill my hearts desire.

Tuesdays are dedicated to the Old Testament books of history
and the Hebrew “Writings.”
In the season of Pentecost this year we read Proverbs 13 and 14 and 1 Samuel.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

Though the persons of the Trinity never act alone, their separateness does suggest modes in the life of grace that honor each person of the Trinity in a special manner. Advent to Epiphany stirs within us a longing for God as Creator and Father to intervene in an unjust and sinful world. God does this: Jesus, Messiah and Son of God is born. The season of Lent and Easter focuses upon the saving acts of Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. This third season is dedicated to the Holy Spirit, taking its name from the festival linked to the Spirit—Pentecost.

The church in the west has been celebrating Trinity Sunday on the Sunday after Pentecost since 1334. We gather the movement of God over the previous seasons, into a single contemplation of the wholeness of God. You do the same today.

Matthew 28:16–20

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: You with me, now and always

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
During Lent and Easter, we read from the Gospel of John.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.