Lent Meditation: Day 9 - February 26, 2026

📖 Scripture Verse

Each evening [those who treacherously plot evil] come back,

howling like dogs and prowling about the city.

There they are, bellowing with their mouths,

with sharp words on their lips—

for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?” — Psalm 59:6-7

🕯️Meditation

The psalmist looks out over his city in trouble, with enemies and dangers ravaging the community, seemingly without fear or concern that they will ever be held to account.  The psalmist looks at the marauders and poetically imagines them “howling like dogs” that no one who can do anything about them sees or hears their actions.  Where is God?  Why does he allow the wicked enemies of his beloved people to run riot and destroy without consequence?

Have you ever had a time in your life when it seemed like everything was arrayed against you and everything was going wrong—your problems “howling and prowling”?  The psalmist reminds us that we can in times of great trouble when evil and woe seem to be winning the day with no end in sight and call out to God.  Even when we are waiting, sometimes painfully and exhaustedly for help or reprieve—we can remind God and remind ourselves in prayer of God’s faithfulness.  At the end of the psalm, the poet prays, “But I will sing of your might: I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been a fortress for me and a refuge in the day of my distress.”

🙏 Prayer

O God, when I am in trouble, please do not leave me alone with my troubles. You are my fortress and I rely on your steadfast love.  Amen.

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