At Sanctuary on Sunday, we had a look at the Psalms, what they do, and how to use them.
The Psalms are sacred songs or poems that express a wide range of emotions and experiences; from joy, to praise, to sorrow, and to repentance, you name it, all human life is there. The Psalms resonate with the human experience across hundreds of generations, and they provide a guide for us in our approach to God, a pathway to worship, prayer, meditation, and even how we think.
One of the most striking features of the psalms is their honesty. They don’t shy away from expressing deep feelings of anxiety, anger, sorrow, doubt, fear, you name it, it’s all there. For example, Psalm 22 begins with a poignant cry of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This line has echoed through the ages, and it reflects feelings of despair that most, if not all of us, will be familiar with at one time or another. As you know, Jesus himself spoke these words on the cross, linking the prayers of the Old Testament with the promise of salvation.
The Psalms provide comfort and wisdom when we stumble, and they give voice to our discontent. But equally, they give us a voice when we want to celebrate and express our joy and wonder. It can be easy to overlook their many uses in our devotional lives, but here’s a couple of personal examples:
My favourite Psalm is Psalm 121. It opens with the words “I lift my eyes up to the mountains; where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” [NIV] As someone who loves to be outdoors, I find the whole thing about mountains so powerful, and for me to stand just looking at a mountain is to find myself in a place of worship and wonder.
My second example comes from Psalm 40. Many of you will remember the band U2 basing a song on this Psalm, where they added the chorus “how long to sing this song?” In the early 90’s I suffered an industrial injury and could no longer work. My arms were damaged and there were so many basic things I was unable to do anymore, and I certainly couldn’t play music. My legs worked okay though so I’d spend hours walking in the countryside while Fran was at work, and sometimes as I walked I’d find myself singing a line from the song/Psalm – “how long to sing this song?.” Very loudly at times! If you look at the second line of the Psalm, it says “He turned to me and He heard my cry.” And He did, and as my arms regained some of their strength, I found Verse 3: “He put a new song in my mouth.” And He did that too – it was about that time that I started leading worship. I confess to having struggled with the idea of “… waiting patiently for the Lord”, but I don’t need to understand the theology of the Psalms to be able to use them to get closer to God, I don’t even need to get the words right, I just need to open my mouth.
The beauty of the Psalms is that anyone of us, however unqualified we are, can find something in them that mirrors our heart and feelings, and that something gives us a platform that enables us to reach out and find our place in God. So, whether you’re a writer or a singer, a poet or a thinker, or just simply trying to find your way home, the Psalms are there as your road map.
If you would like to, please have a go at this exercise: Find somewhere to be – as you can read in my story above, this can be literally anywhere! Take a line from your favourite Psalm and repeat it to yourself, sing it, meditate on it, and see what happens. If I’m honest, I wasn’t even sure God was listening when I was singing “how long to sing this song.” But He was…
