{"id":14343,"date":"2026-05-25T22:35:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14343"},"modified":"2026-05-25T22:35:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:35:25","slug":"a-salvation-history-psalm-for-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14343","title":{"rendered":"A Salvation History Psalm for Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I only have two more types of Psalms to cover on my prayingwiththepsalmists.com<\/a> website!<\/p>\n

One of those types is Salvation History Psalms, so I want to write another example. [You have to click on the Examples link to go from a page on prayingwiththepsalmists.com<\/a> to see example psalms, but I’m hoping the number of examples will continue to grow. I’m also hoping that more and more readers will post their own examples in the comments on this blog. I’m using the Sonderjourneys blog for comments rather than try to put them on the main webpage, because WordPress already has moderation and spam filters.]<\/p>\n

Salvation History Psalms in the Bible go over God’s history with Israel and make application today. I’m currently looking at Psalm 78 in my personal quiet times, and the psalmist goes over the story of the Exodus and how God’s people kept letting God down, but God was patient with them and never gave up on them completely. And it winds up by praying that God will, once again, have mercy and help them.<\/p>\n

In my previous Salvation History psalm examples<\/a>, I’ve used my personal history with God. But today is Memorial Day, so it seems fitting to talk about what I know about the history of the United States. And we could use some help.<\/p>\n

A Prayer for Our Nation<\/p>\n

Father, hundreds of years ago, some of my ancestors
\ncame across an ocean
\nto be able to worship you
\nin the way they thought was right.<\/p>\n

They founded a nation on the principle
\nthat all are created equal –
\nthough our nation’s talk
\nwas better than its walk.<\/p>\n

Over the years, our nation
\nperpetrated injustices
\nagainst Native Americans
\nagainst African Americans
\nagainst Hispanics
\nagainst Asian Americans
\nagainst women
\nagainst anyone who wasn’t white and wealthy.<\/p>\n

But over two hundred and fifty years,
\npeople worked for justice and freedom.
\nWe fought a Civil War and ended slavery –
\nat least for those who could stay out of prison.
\nWe erected a statue proclaiming welcome
\nto the world’s tired and poor immigrants.
\nIn a time of financial ruin,
\nwe passed laws promising a New Deal
\n– giving hope to those in poverty.
\nWe fought a war in Europe
\nto conquer fascism
\nand rescue folks wrongly and cruelly imprisoned.
\nWe passed civil rights legislation
\nthrough the hard work of persistent activists.
\nPeople began to realize the evils of racism.
\nAnd then we extended more rights to same-sex couples,
\nrights they should have had all along.
\nWe loosened immigration restrictions,
\ngetting closer to the promise on the Statue of Liberty.
\nImmigrants made our country
\nstronger and prouder.<\/p>\n

Lord God, we’re getting some things right,
\nbut so many things wrong.
\nWe want to be a land of the free,
\nbut new laws are pulling back freedoms.
\nWe want to be a welcoming place,
\nand instead secret police are arresting hard-working immigrants
\nwho had wanted to become part of us.
\nWe want this to be a land of freedom,
\nand instead tell trans people what bathroom they can use.<\/p>\n

Almighty God, so much good has come out of America,
\nbut also so much evil.
\nWe pray on this Memorial Day
\nfor peace – that more servicemembers will not join the fallen.
\nAnd we pray that this would again
\nor for the first time truly
\nbe a land of welcome,
\na land of freedom,
\na land of justice for the oppressed.<\/p>\n

May the greedy plans of the wicked
\nbe frustrated and fail.
\nMay the racist plans of the evil
\nfall apart under the light of the truth
\nthat all, indeed, are created equal.<\/p>\n

May you make this nation
\ngrow closer to
\nliving up to its promise.
\nAnd bless America
\nas a land of opportunity, equality,
\njustice, and freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I only have two more types of Psalms to cover on my prayingwiththepsalmists.com website! One of those types is Salvation History Psalms, so I want to write another example. [You have to click on the Examples link to go from a page on prayingwiththepsalmists.com to see example psalms, but I’m hoping the number of examples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-praying-with-the-psalmists","category-salvation-history-psalms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14347,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14343\/revisions\/14347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}