40 Days, Day 10: Refuge

5"x7" Acrylic on Paper

email me to purchase the original art

Psalm 43

Prayer to God in Time of Trouble

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
    against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful and unjust
    deliver me!
 For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
    why have you cast me off?
Why must I walk about mournfully
    because of the oppression of the enemy?

 O send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling.
 Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God my exceeding joy;
and I will praise you with the harp,
    O God, my God.

 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my help and my God.

40 Days: Day 3: Psalm 51

5"x7" Acrylic on Paper

email me to purchase the original art

PSALM 51:1-17
A Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions. 

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin. 

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me. 

Against you, you alone, have I sinned,

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence

and blameless when you pass judgement. 

Indeed, I was born guilty,

a sinner when my mother conceived me. 

You desire truth in the inward being;

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 

Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me. 

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me. 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit. 

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you. 

Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,

O God of my salvation,

and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise. 

For you have no delight in sacrifice;

if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased. 

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

I Will Awake the Dawn

8"x10" Oil on Panel

with Palette Knife

Click Here To Purchase

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
    for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
    until the destroying storms pass by.

I cry to God Most High,
    to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
 He will send from heaven and save me,
    he will put to shame those who trample on me.
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.

 I lie down among lions
    that greedily devour human prey;
their teeth are spears and arrows,
    their tongues sharp swords.

 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
    Let your glory be over all the earth.

They set a net for my steps;
    my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my path,
    but they have fallen into it themselves.
 My heart is steadfast, O God,
    my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody.
     Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
    I will awake the dawn.
 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
    I will sing praises to you among the nations.
 For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
    your faithfulness extends to the clouds.

 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
    Let your glory be over all the earth.

Psalm 30: You Have Turned My Mourning Into Dancing

6"x6" Oil on Panel

with Palette Knife

Click Here to Purchase

I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up,
    and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
    and you have healed me.
 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
    restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,
    and give thanks to his holy name.
 For his anger is but for a moment;
    his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning.

 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
    “I shall never be moved.”
 By your favor, O Lord,
    you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face;
    I was dismayed.

 To you, O Lord, I cried,
    and to the Lord I made supplication:
 “What profit is there in my death,
    if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
    Will it tell of your faithfulness?
 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!
    O Lord, be my helper!”

 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
    you have taken off my sackcloth
    and clothed me with joy,
 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

40 Days: Day 36: On the Willows We Hung up Our Harps

6"x6" Oil on Panel

with Palette Knife

Click Here to Purchase

By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.On the willows there we hung up our harps.For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

Psalm 137: 1-3

40 Days: Day 12: Psalm 100

6"x6" Oil on Deep Edged Canvas

with Palette Knife

Commissioned

Psalm 100

A psalm of thanksgiving.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

    Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come into his presence with singing.

 Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he that made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
    and his courts with praise.
    Give thanks to him, bless his name.

For the Lord is good;
    his steadfast love endures forever,
    and his faithfulness to all generations.

40 Days: Day 10: Quiet

6"x6" Oil on Panel

with Palette Knife

SOLD

O  Lord, my heart is not lifted up,

    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
   too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;
    my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

    from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 131

40 Days: Day 4: Psalm 139—The Inescapable God

6"x6" Oil on Panel

with Palette Knife

SOLD

Psalm 139

The Inescapable God

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

7 Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you.

19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
    and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20 those who speak of you maliciously,
    and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
    And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred;
    I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.