Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
Psalm 85:10-11
The psalmist’s poetry personifies the great actions of our loving God. Love, faithfulness, righteousness, and peace move and greet one another as if they have feet, lips, eyes, and hands. In so doing, we imagine God’s very presence with us in ways that make sense to our human bodies and experiences. We visualize God through our own experience and wonder, where are these meeting places and greetings, wellsprings, and visions from on high in our lives?
Visualization is a practice used by athletes and others to prepare and train for various situations. Creating a mental image of what we want to see or do shapes our behavior and actions. It is a discipline that sets our minds and bodies in the direction of what we hope for. We can also visualize our life of faith, training our minds and bodies to hope for and expect God’s actions in our world and in our lives.
How much more love and faithfulness will we observe if we are looking for it? How much more peace and righteousness will be evident if we set our hope on finding them? As we reflect on God’s advent in our lives through Christ, the psalmist opens our mind’s eye and imagination to God’s presence in our lives by training our minds, eyes, and hearts to experience God’s actions anew.
Loving God, you move in and around us with fervor and compassion. Enliven us to dance with your presence and reveal the activity of your love and mercy to all the world. Amen.
The Rev. Jennifer Phelps recently served as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Perkasie. Previously, she served as Executive Director of Lutheran Congregational Services.
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