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Listening to God in Prayer: Praying the Psalms

Lynne Baab • Thursday February 1 2018

Listening to God in Prayer: Praying the Psalms

For me, praying the psalms over more than three decades has been a tremendous blessing. Psalms show me I can bring varied emotions to God. Psalms give me words to express things I feel about my life and about God. They expand my vocabulary as I praise God. They help me relax into the presence of the God who made the universe, redeemed humans from sin, and loves us through and through.

You might wonder why would I include a post about praying the psalms in a series about prayer as listening to God. In what ways does praying the psalms help us listen to God?

1. Emotions. Because the psalms model such a vast array of emotions that people bring to God, they speak to us about God’s acceptance of us just the way we are, no matter what we’re feeling. They tell us that no emotion is too ugly to bring into God’s presence in prayer. Many of us feel so much shame about the way we’re made and the way we act. The psalms reassure us of God’s acceptance of us just the way we are. Nothing about who we are needs to be hidden from God.

2. Praise and thanks. Because the psalms model a variety of ways to praise and thank God, they teach us to offer praise and thanks to God. It’s almost as if God, through the psalms, instructs us about how to offer praise and thanks to God.

Over the course of my marriage, I have sometimes given my husband pretty direct hints about how to love me. I might say, “It would mean so much to me if you could tell me some of the things you think I am doing well in this situation.” Or, “I need some positive feedback about how I look because I dressed up carefully for the event we’re going to, and I’m feeling insecure.”

In the same way, the psalms give us instruction from God about how to love God. And as we praise and thank God, showing our love, we open our eyes to more of God’s gifts to us.

3. Resting in God’s presence. Because the psalms are so accepting of human emotion, they help us enter into God’s presence and abide there. If we want to hear God speak, being in God’s presence makes it more likely we will hear that still small voice.

Many of these benefits come from memorizing or reading psalms. I have experienced that praying them makes the benefits more intense because I offer all I am and all I have to God, I praise and thank God more intensely, and I sense that I am in God’s presence more readily.

Praying the psalms slows us down, which enables us to listen better. In our fast paced world, anything that slows us down is a powerful gift.

If you’d like to read more praying the psalms, and try some new ways to pray the psalms, one year ago I wrote about how to pray the psalms. You can check it out here.

This is the 12th post in a series on growing in listening to God in prayer. The previous posts are:

Listening to God in prayer        
My journey         
Alone or with others         
Breath prayer         
Distractions in silent prayer        
Noticing God’s presence         
Looking back at 2017         
A new approach to the Bible         
Key questions about listening to God         
Lectio Divina: A pattern for letting God speak through scripture          
Imagining yourself in a Bible story           

(Next week: One man's story about learning to listen to God in prayer. Illustration by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “Subscribe” in the right hand column.)

Lent begins on Valentine’s Day. If you’d like a devotional for Lent, check out the one I wrote a couple of years ago with reflection questions on a psalm for each day of Lent. I've had good feedback from people who have used it on their own and also from others who used it in a small group. My husband Dave’s beautiful paintings provide illustrations for it. Available here.



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