Read Psalms 55-57
I encourage you to
read all three Psalms today as a model for prayer. As you let the words of Psalms 55-57 sink,
settle, and sing to your soul today, where does your heart feel strangely
warmed that someone at some point in ancient history found words for what you
are feeling right now? I, like Psalm 55,
want God to listen to my prayers. But
does that mean that I expect God to do what I want? Is God a genie in a bottle who must
respond to every request? When do I need
mercy, perhaps because of suffering or because I made a mistake or because the
voices in my head keep pointing out all the ways I messed up? When do I get frustrated by “enemies”? Is naming that frustration helping or
hurting? Does admitting and accepting
the emotion of anger help to engage or further enrage? These are powerful psalms to group together
because they echo each other and add new dimensions/depth when
taken as a whole. One of my prayers for
reading the Psalms was to give you permission to pray all the emotions that are
in your heart ~ the anger and anxiety and praise and ordinary moments. Too often we can rely on others to pray for
us rather than finding the words our shy souls need to sing by our own voice. Let these words of these three psalms help
you find a way to explore and express all that you are carrying into
this new month of June. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment