Praying the Psalms: So, how’s your prayer life? Have you ever used the Psalms to help you find words or emotions to go with your experiences? Prayer is deeply personal, as are many of the Psalms, they are at times gleeful and joyous, they also can express great rage and fear. While many thoughts expressed by the Psalter can often seem so raw and emotional- so extreme – these are timeless emotions and appropriate for us even today. Over and over again, the psalter invariably gives up these thoughts and emotions to God, letting them go.
Join us on Sundays from 9-9:45 AM, beginning March 1, through March 22 as we take a closer look at the Psalter’s language.
At a glance the Psalms can seem esoteric, distant and hard to grasp. This ancient language and its patterns evident in these songs provide guidance into deeper prayer time with God. The Psalter gives us words of longing, words of elation, words of desperation and even vengeance and words of complete reliance on God.
The raw humanity present in these words help feed our imagination, and free our spirits to this deeper sense of God’s presence. The Psalms can validate any sense of disorientation or disconnect with God. These poems can encourage us to visualize and experience the Ultimate Love made available to us as children of God. In all this, the psalter’s trust in God remains.
The language of the Psalms is the language of liberation. Such language shows us how to pray with our whole hearts – giving up to God all that is within, relinquishing our concerns, our disgust, our anger (yes, anger!) as well as our delight, our joy and finding comfort in complete reliance on God.
We’ll meet upstairs in the youth room from 9-9:45 AM on Sundays for the next few weeks, beginning March 1 and ending March 22.
Come and learn about reading and praying the Psalms. It won’t be the same without you.
Grace and peace,
Holly B.
