Psalm 41: The Song of Blessed Sickness
The Psalms interpret everything in life as spiritual — because everything is spiritual. From the sunshine of a new day to terrible illness, from friendships to enemies, everything is an opportunity to worship the God who is all in all.
Psalm 39: The Song of Breath
The Psalms are not the songs of immortal angels but mortal human beings, frail and feeble, aging and dying. When we sing these songs and pray these prayers, we are using our finite breath to confess to the eternal God that we rely on him for everything in life and death.
Psalm 38: The Song of Sin-Sickness
The Psalms are not afraid to attribute our pain to God. God’s goodness is not negated by his discipline, because his character is not dependent on our circumstances but on his steadfast love. Trials and suffering are sometimes a necessary sign of God’s severe mercy.
Psalm 35: The Song of Vindication
The Psalms contend with evil. They give us words when we experience true injustice, despicable prejudice, malicious schemes, and even traumatic violence. The Psalms are not simply beautiful words; they are fighting words for peacemakers in a dark world.
Psalm 31: The Song of Crisis
The Psalms meet a variety of needs beyond just the experiences of the authors. When we hear someone tell their story, there are elements that don’t match our experiences but still resonate with us on a deeper level. In the Psalms, we find fellow human beings who, like us, are in the midst of crisis […]
Psalm 28: The Song of the Strong Sanctuary
The Psalms are pledges of allegiance to God. They are declarations of our desire to be aligned with God and no one else. When the world says, “I reject God,” the psalms give us language to plant our flag in the ground and say, “I am his, and he is mine. I belong to the […]
Psalm 26: The Song of the Steady Sanctuary
The Psalms assume that we are praying to the God who already knows our prayers. He sees everything truly as it is, and because our vision is often flawed and distorted, we run to God for reality. He makes the final verdict. He is our standard of truth.
Psalm 25: The Song of Alphabetical Trust
The Psalms are teachers. They broaden our minds as we, the students, sit at our desks and study these carefully crafted prayers. The Psalms educate us with all the support, structure, and challenge that a good classroom demands. They invite us to learn how to talk with God.
Psalm 22: The Song of the Forsaken
The Psalms are inherently communal, which is sometimes surprising given that some psalmists describe their intense loneliness. The Psalms give words to our isolation, but we must not forget that these are also corporate songs for the community of God’s people. It’s one thing to sing a lament alone; it’s another thing to sing a […]
Psalm 17: The Song of the Innocent
The Psalms show us how to relate with God both as our friend and as our judge. The psalmists will often move fluidly from a conversational intimacy to a formal plea for vindication and back again, because in their minds, God is both near to his people and high above humanity as the transcendent, sovereign […]