(Virginia-Highland Church, United Church of Christ, Atlanta, GA, April 24, 2018, on 6 mile ride on the BeltLine with Kelsey on her new bike.)

Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.
Psalm 81:1-2

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Psalm 81 (NRSV)

Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.

Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.

Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day.

For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.

He made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known:

“I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.

In distress you called, and I rescued you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

“But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.

So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.

O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

Then I would quickly subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes.

Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their doom would last forever.

I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

(Letter Box Baptist Church, McKee, Kentucky on the 60 mile Redbud Ride from London, Kentucky, April 21, 2018, with my friend Troy Von.)

Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
Psalm 80:3, 7,19

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Psalm 80 (NRSV)

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth

before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us!

Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?

You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.

You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.

Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.

You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.

The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches;

it sent out its branches to the sea, and its shoots to the River.

Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?

The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.

Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,

the stock that your right hand planted.

They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your countenance.

But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.

Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.

Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

(Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, Winona, Mississippi on a 204 mile (three day) ride to raise awareness for Together for Hope and Civil Rights, April 4-6, 2018. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Civil Rides began at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the 50th Anniversary of his death and ended at the Civil Rights museum in Jackson, Mississippi, with stops at may important civil rights sites along the way.)

Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.
Psalm 79:9

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Psalm 79 (NRSV)

O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth.

They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.

We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.

How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?

Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name.

For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.

Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.

Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.

Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes.

Let the groans of the prisoners come before you; according to your great power preserve those doomed to die.

Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord!

Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.