Each week, during our Monday morning “Devotional,” we have taken that time to read and talk about a psalm. Each week is a different psalm in which we are discovering that the ancient words have contemporary meaning and provide a structure for prayer. For over 3000 years the Psalms have been at the center of the prayer life of the people of God. A reason for the centrality of the Psalms, in prayer and in the lives of the people of God, is that they closely identify with us and the wide range of emotions that we experience in the daily living of our life. Another way of saying this is: the Psalms are not only God’s way of speaking to us; they give us words to say in speaking with God, praying to God. They are words to use in pouring out our hearts to God. The following are 3 quotes from 2 early church fathers and a Protestant reformer as they write about the significance of the Psalms as words for praying.“
…the Psalms have a unique place in the Bible because most of the Scripture speaks to us, while the Psalms speak for us.” - Anthanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, 296-373 AD
“If the psalm prays, you pray; if it laments, you lament; if it exults, you rejoice; if it hopes, you hope; if it fears, you fear. Everything written here is a mirror for us.” - Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Carthage, 354 – 430 AD
“(In) the Psalms…the Holy Spirit has drawn here all the grief, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the mind of men are wont to be agitated.” - John Calvin, Swiss Protestant Reformer, 1509 – 1564
What these quotes refer to is that the Psalms express every facet of human experience helping us to realize that God knows and understands our feelings no matter what we are feeling, and that God has given us words to express our feelings to God. In reality the Psalms give us permission to share our whole being with God.
The following is a partial list of emotions\ feelings expressed in the Psalms. You may want to choose one or several depending on what you are feeling. A way to pray a psalm would be to read it from one or several translations letting it be your prayer and, or, rewrite the psalm in your own words.
Anxiety: 27, 34, 46, 103, 116, 121
Distress: 22, 28, 42, 73, 77, 109
Forgiveness: 32, 39, 51
Grieving\Lament: 13,38, 56, 88, 137
Guidance: 25, 37, 40, 119:1-16, 139
Help\Mercy: 54, 57, 69, 86, 119:153-160, 143
Healing: 30, 103
Joy: 21, 47, 96, 100
Peace: 23, 62, 84, 116
Praise: 8, 27, 66, 92, 138, 145-150
Rage\Anger: 55, 58, 83, 91, 94
Thankfulness: 30, 107, 118, 136
What God’s people, 3000 years ago, learned from God and expressed to God may be inviting us to share some of our current feelings with God. I think of Psalm 139:4, “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.” As that is so, which it is, then God does know our feelings and is waiting for us to bring them to Him. With the psalmist, we can then say, “God has surely listened, and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God who has not rejected my prayer….” Psalm 66:19-20
