Psalms

“Most Christians for most of the Christian centu-ries have learned to pray by praying the Psalms…[they] give us a language adequate for responding to the God who speaks to us.

Untutored we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not. Inexperienced, we suppose that there must be an ‘insider’ language that must be ac-quired before God takes us seriously in our pray-er. There is not. Prayer is elemental, not ad-vanced, language. It is the means by which our language becomes honest, true, and personal in response to God. It is the means by which we get everything in our lives out in the open before God.

[I am] convinced that only as we develop raw honesty and detailed thoroughness in our pray-ing do we become whole, truly human in Jesus Christ, who also prayed the Psalms.”

Guiding Question: What do you learn about God in this Psalm, and what do you learn about yourself?