My daily prayer routine is to pray the Divine Office (also called the Liturgy of the Hours). In the morning I pray the Invitatory, the Office of Readings, and the Morning Office. At night, the Evening Office.
The Invitatory of the Divine Office, the prayer I pray every morning to start the day, is Psalm 95. The lines that have become increasingly meaningful to me each day are these:
Today, if you hear his voice:
Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the wilderness
where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
The events at Meribah and Massah are recounted in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. Meribah means "quarreling" and Massah means "testing." In their desert wanderings, the Israelites find themselves short of water and begin to complain against Moses and the Lord. The Lord instructs Moses to bring forth water from a rock. The people are refreshed, but the place is named Meribah and Massah to mark the location where Israel quarreled against and tested the Lord.
The specific line that grabs me, the one I shared at the top, is: "Today, if you hear his voice: Do not harden your hearts." The line has become important to me, and I can only assume it's one of the reasons Psalm 95 was selected at the first prayer of the morning in the Daily Office, as it calls me to attentiveness.
Today, if you hear the voice of God, do not harden your heart. Be wakeful. Be watchful and alert. Listen well. Listen closely. The Lord may speak to you today. You may be addressed.
O my soul, be ready.
