Category: Creation Hymns

My as-yet-unpublished book, Praying with the Psalmists, is about using patterns from Psalms in your own prayers. I want to make a habit of praying that way, using different types of Psalms.

On Good Friday, before singing in a wonderful cantata in the evening, I walked among the bluebells at Bull Run Regional Park in the afternoon.

So this is a perfect time to write a creation hymn.

Creation Hymns in Psalms use the following key concepts:

• God’s Glory
• God’s Sustaining Care
• God’s Knowledge
• Creation’s Joyful Response

You’ll find them in Psalms 8, 19, 33, 65, 95, 96, 104, 139, and 148.

The key concepts give us an idea of what to talk about. I’m going to write a creation psalm about what a wonderful time I had out in God’s creation.

Lord, I love the bluebells so much,
the first flowers on the forest floor.
Each one has small beauty,
rewarding a zoom lens with a glimpse of perfection.
But the fields together
give sparkles of color as far as the eye can see.

I love the way these flowers are wild,
not cultivated like hothouse plants,
but exuberantly filling every bit of ground
overflowing a space that tree leaves normally shade,
bursting forth before the leaves come back,
proclaiming with their brightness that Spring is on its way.

And you gave me a glorious day to roam the trail,
to stop and stoop to capture one flower’s portrait.
Sunshine streaming through the bare branches,
blue skies shining high above,
air brisk and clear,
a perfect day for a ramble.

And with the cantata choir to come,
songs of your love go through my head.
And can it be that I should gain
an interest in my Savior’s blood?
And can it be?
And can it be?

No humans tend these abundant blossoms,
they fall under your tender care.
And if that is how God clothes the Spring blossoms,
that appear only for a few weeks,
how much more will my Father in heaven
care for my needs?

Lord, it’s hard to worry or fret
when walking the Bluebell Trail.
With the river calmly flowing past,
the small flowers dancing in the breezes,
the brisk air filling my lungs,
the happy children spotting critters,
the sound of birds chirping in the trees high above,
it easy to imagine they’re all singing your praises.
And I can pause my busy life to join in.

That’s the idea. Mind you, I’m partly posting this so you know your own psalms don’t actually have to be very good!

Try it at home! If you’re really brave, post one you’ve written in the comments!

This week my church small group is looking at Chapter 8 of my Psalms book — Creation Hymns. So again, I’m going to try to write one. Not a polished one, but just as a prayer, whatever comes out.

Creation Hymns involve key concepts of God’s Glory, God’s Sustaining Care, God’s Knowledge, and Creation’s Joyful Response. And to make it read like a Psalm, I try for parallelism, repeating or emphasizing ideas in a second line.

Usually when I try to pray a creation hymn, I think about the beauty of nature. The irises by my lake have begun to bloom! So I could pray about that.

But this week, I’ve been thinking about Psalm 139, which begins:

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.

If you’re not familiar with that Psalm, look it up! So many beautiful ways of expressing how deeply and thoroughly my Creator knows me.

And this is comforting, because I’m still feeling stressed and inadequate.

The leak from the unit above me that poured water into my home last week has been fixed. Water mitigation folks dried everything out with very loud fans.

But my bathroom ceiling and bedroom wall still have big holes in them. The place doesn’t smell good — I hope just like the inside of walls and not mold. And it still hasn’t been settled how it all will be paid for. Surely it’s the responsibility of the owner of the unit above me, but he’s an offsite landlord and his property management company wants me to make a claim on my insurance. Surely my insurance will in turn go after them, because it’s well documented that the leak came from above. They also want their own people to make an estimate before they proceed with reconstruction, and I have a feeling it’s not going to happen before I go out of town in a couple weeks.

But let me put in the psalm why I’m upset with myself. The title is from Psalm 103:

You Know That I Am Dust

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.

I know that you’re going to take care of me
and already have taken care of me.
I’m not going to have to pay for the damage,
and it’s relatively little damage
and I’m privileged to be a homeowner
and what’s a little inconvenience?
Especially when my little niece
is suffering with relapsed leukemia.
So how can I get stressed and tired and headachy
simply from a first-world problem like this?

Lord, I keep thinking that trust
means we shouldn’t get upset.
But you know me better than that.
You made me human.
Instead, may I turn to you when troubles happen
when parts of my home literally fall apart.
And maybe I need a little more sleep,
a little more leeway in my plans for getting things done.

Why am I so much harder on myself
than you are?
And how did a problem in only one small part of my home
throw me for such a loop,
make me feel so vulnerable?

But Lord, you know that you made me human,
not a robot.
You know that my life is one-of-a-kind.
You gave me my unique quirks.
And yes, you gave me vulnerabilities,
not making me out of steel.
And they are not flaws,
but facets of your image.
And may I shine that image
more fully with every day that goes by.
And learn about trusting you,
turning to you,
even when my home falls apart,
even when I don’t know what to do.
But may I start by acknowledging that
I don’t know what to do
and I’m feeling stressed
and extra tired
and I want my place of refuge back
and I want all the paperwork done.

Thank you, Lord, for the world you’ve made,
and the ingenuity you’ve given folks
to build homes
and put them back together when they fall apart.
Thank you that it could have been so much worse
and it wasn’t.
But that it’s still okay to feel stressed,
and it reminds me to turn to you.

I’m doing a project where I’m looking at different types of Psalms and using the ideas to write my own psalms. It’s a form of prayer and an exercise that is blessing me every time I try.

Now I’ve come to Creation Hymns, which seem like one of the most straightforward types of Psalms. Some examples are Psalms 8, 33, 65, 95, 96, 104, and 148. These are hymns that talk about God’s amazing power in creating and maybe talk about how small mankind is when compared with creation.

In trying to write my own, it’s hard to know where to start. But lately, under Stay-at-Home orders, the sky has been more blue than ever and I’ve gotten to take daily walks by my lake on my lunch break when working from home. So I’m just going to start by praising God for the beauty I see every day.

The one other thing to keep in mind is try to use parallelism — repeat yourself, saying something similar in a slightly different way. It gives the writing the rhythm of the Psalms and gives the writing a meditative pace.

I’m going to try to keep it short to make it an example that you can try at home!

Lord, you didn’t have to make the world beautiful.
You could have created a colorless landscape.
But your creation oozes with beauty
and shines into my windows with wonder.
Each season brings new glories;
your wonders never cease to unfold.
When the cherry blossoms fall
and the bluebells go silent,
then irises quietly sprout at lakeside,
flamboyantly flashing their colors.

Scientists say that living by water is good for the health of humans
Is that because of the beauty of aquatic creatures?
Or maybe the soothing sounds of moving water
or simply the mesmerizing maze of ripples?

The sheer variety of your creatures is astonishing.
Birds alone come in all shapes and sizes
from the slow long-necked wade of the great blue heron
to the proud perch of the bright tree swallow
to the raucous cry of the crow,
the shimmering stare of the grackle,
and the sudden dive of the osprey.

Lord, if a sparrow can’t fall without your noticing,
if you keep track of myriads of creatures,
which you created in all their amazing forms
which you made with the wildest imagination of all,
then surely you can track my movements.
Certainly you know my fears.
Assuredly you understand my longings.
Decidedly you comprehend my needs.

And I will never go unnoticed.
I will always be in your tender care.

Now you try! A Psalm about Creation. What have you noticed lately?