“If you bury yourself in Psalms, you emerge knowing God and understanding life….We learn from the psalms how to think and act in reference to God….They show us who God is, and that expands and lifts and directs our minds and hearts” (Willard, ch. 3). That was enough to inspire me; I’m studying Psalms! As I read, I plan to ask myself, “What does this psalm tell me about God and my relationship to Him?”
Psalms is actually divided into five smaller books. I want to study Book 1, which is Psalm 1-41. It is a good number of Psalms to study in 6-8 weeks. I decided to experiment and find out what the key words are. Key words are often repeated, so I pasted the whole section into an online word counter. I found out that “Lord” is the most frequent word, followed by “O” (that was funny) and then “God”. This supports Dr. Willard’s statement. If I bury myself in Psalms, I will read about God.
I began my study by reading Book 1 straight
through without stopping. It was wonderful, like listening to a
beautiful choir concert! As I read, I could hear many of the psalms being said or sung together in a beautiful worship service. And there are songs that I imagined being
penned by candlelight…one single head tearfully bent over the words, the voice
of one heart crying out to God. At times
I stopped reading and thought, “Oh!
There it is!” It was so exciting
to come upon a well-known, well-loved verse in context! The Psalms are beautiful! (I know, that is four exclamation marks in a row, but it really was a wonderful experience...!)
David wrote almost all of the songs
in Book 1. Now, I knew he was “The Psalmist.”
Really, I did. But I didn't realize how many he wrote until
I got in there and began reading for myself.
I guess I thought that since he was so
busy, he had less time to write. Well, I
looked it up in my Study Bible and found that David wrote about half of the
entire book of Psalms! In Book 1, his voice
is clear, and his songs come from every circumstance. In them there is pain, frustration, grief, loneliness,
anger, awe, thanksgiving, triumph, joy, confidence and love.
What does this tell me about God and
my relationship to Him? First, I can be honest with God. I can tell him
everything...my whole messy life, just as it is.
I don’t have to clean up my feelings or leave out ugly details. You see, David left it all in. Many of the psalms start out
terribly! Then there is this moment when
David says “But God…” and the psalm ends beautifully. That's the second thing. David shows me that when I speak to God, I
must speak to Him as He is. He does not
change along with my circumstances or feelings.
He is always Mighty. He is always
Good. He is always King. He is always God. So, as I speak about how I am and what is
really going on with me, it will help me to remember who God is and what is
Really going on with Him.
What is my Bible open to now? Psalm 1-41. I will read it all again, straight through in a different translation. I hope your Bible will be open, too.
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Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy, Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. 1997. HarperCollins e-books, EPub
Edition. 2009. Kindle file.
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