Praying the Psalms
Beloved Trinity,
Advent is here! Christmas is coming. Jesus is coming! The church is preparing. We are preparing our home. Employees are preparing for banners to switch from "Black Friday” to “Small Business Saturday” to "Cyber Monday" to "Happy Holidays" and maybe even a few will say “Merry Christmas.” How will you prepare your heart?
Martin Luther’s Christmas Hymn “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come” (LSB 358) has a great prayer verse:
Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,Prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,A quiet chamber set apartFor You to dwell within my heart
One way I am planning to prepare my heart is by entering more profoundly into the Bible’s prayerbook: the Psalms.
“The Psalter impregnated the life of early Christianity. Yet more important than all of this is the fact that Jesus died on the cross with the words of the Psalter on his lips. Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. Augsburg 1970).
A great introduction to praying the Psalms has been penned by Ben Patterson. Here is a link to a PDF of that introduction.
Here is an especially good paragraph from Ben’s book:
Prayer, like language, begins with being able to hear. Prayer starts not when we speak to God but when God speaks to us. In the beginning was the Word; God’s word, not ours. Before all time, before you and I were, was the Word; the Light that gives light and life to everyone. There would be no speech if God had not first spoken. We would have nothing to say if God had not first said something to us. Ultimately then, all our prayers are answers to God’s prayer—his gracious Word of love to us! We love, and we pray, because he first loved us. That’s what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was referring to when he wrote, “The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.” The Bible, the written Word of God, tells us what God wants, and more important, what God is like. It expresses his will and reveals his character. The relationship between the Bible and prayer is profound. This is especially true when it comes to the Psalms.
If you would like to take part in praying the Psalms during Advent, respond by…
1. replying to this email “Email version of the Psalms” to sign up for a daily email to this address, or,
2. replying to this email “Text version of the Psalms to [insert mobile phone number]” to sign up for a daily text message
Then you will receive something that includes a one-word summary of each Psalm, a focused thought, and a diagnostic question. It will look something like this:
Tuesday, December 1st
Morning
Psalm 1 “Flourish”
Psalm 2 “Anointed”
Psalm 3 “Shield”
Psalm 4 “Shalom”
Psalm 5 “Abiding”
As Genesis 1 describes creation flourishing at God’s Word, Psalm 1 describes the creation of a flourishing person. What stands in the way of real flourishing for you?
Evening
Psalm 6 “Conflict”
Psalm 7 “Integrity”
Psalm 8 “Majestic”
Conflict with God (6.1). Conflict within (6.3). Conflict with others (6.8). You can bring it all to God who hears and accepts your plea (6.9). What conflict can you trust God with tonight?
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