Three Psalms for When You Need New Words to Pray for Help

Psalm 20—We will know the silent sky can speak, and holy heaven ring like struck bells.

May the Lord hear you
And answer with strong wings
Beating on gale winds.
May your help come 
Even before the need is raised—
Swift as hunting hawks,
Fleet as falcons from holy heights.
May he send you every help you ask,
Bigger than heart hoped, dream guessed, 
Or hands could ever gather.

Then we will watch you and sing
Glad, great-hearted songs.
Then we will see that our God
Knows how to save.
We will know the silent sky
Can speak, and holy heaven 
Ring like struck bells.
Some laugh at our long odds
And hope in what their hands can touch,
But we brim and run over
Even when we raise
Empty hands the highest.
Lord, we rise and wait at hopefall
For the sound of hushed wings.
Hear us.

Psalm 61—Blow your love through me until I whistle with it.

Hear me. I send my song
From the farthest flung deep.
My blood seeps through my body
At a faint pace and my whole heart ebbs.
I am afraid.

Walk me to the rock higher than I, 
Summit me to the stormtower; 
I need somewhere to hide.
If God is my refuge, my enemies
Can billow and buck around me,
But I will be safe.

Lord, let me shelter there forever.
I want to live where you live.
Keep me. Save me. Take me in.

You have heard my words,
How I begged for help
And swore myself to you, 
If only you would give me good
And rout out all my waking fears. 

Now, ride your reign down like wind.
Winnow me up and 
Make my enemies chaff all away. 
Blow your love through me
Until I whistle with it.

Psalm 70—Pass the thread of your grace through their tangled hopes until the knot is loosed.

God, hurry. Do not wait another day
To help me. Rush. Hasten.
Fly to me. Scatter back the pack
Of dark dogs that hound around me,
Who seek my life like a treed fox.
Their smiles are all sharp teeth,
Their plans for me glitter in rows
In the open maws of their minds.
Muzzle their mouths and
Round them to heel.

But be a haven for all 
Who come to you for help.
May all who throw themselves
On your salvation like it was 
The last hope they have
Be glad, be graced, be set in place.
For every hangdog day and every
Hunted prayer, give them double back
Of joy, of life, of sudden, surprising, settled peace.
Pass the thread of your grace
Through their tangled hopes 
Until the knot is loosed.
Remember every time they raised pleas to you 
With their faces pressed to the ground. 
Make good their uncounted prayers
You yet numbered and held,
Bated and unforgotten. 

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