O Lord, you have searched me and known me! Psalm 139:1 Psalm 139 is a remarkably personal psalm. Reading it feels like eavesdropping on a private conversation between a king and his God. Yet its inclusion in the hymnbook of the Bible means that this is a conversation that we’re all invited to have with …

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:2–5 The degree …

My father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. Psalm 27:10 David seeks from God what a child seeks from his or her parents. We look to a parent to receive, listen to, guide, and protect us, don’t we? Well, that is exactly what David is seeking from God. …

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” . . . Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your …

A woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that [Jesus] was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and . . . she began to wet his feet with her tears . . . and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee . …