#309 Praying with the Psalms

Leading the congregational prayer (or the prayers of the people or the "long" prayer, depending on what you like to call it) is one of the more intimidating parts of leading worship for me. Jesus warns us about babbling on in our prayers, yet there are so many things that I should pray for, both within and outside of the congregation. Jesus warns us about the perils of praying publicly, yet that's a part of my job. Throughout my ministry I have often used the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus teaches after those warnings as a guide for organizing my prayers.

But I think it's good to pray in different ways at different times, and the Lord's Prayer isn't the only prayer in the Bible. For one thing, God has given us a whole book of prayers, Psalms. Over time I have used more and more psalms as guides when I lead prayers. I started with Psalm 13, which has a simple pattern of lament, request, praise. I would read a couple verses of the psalm and then offer some of my own prayers of lament, request, and praise. Eventually I branched out to use a few other psalms, like 25, 27, and 42. I wouldn't always use every verse of the psalm, but I would read two or three verses to set a direction and then offer some related prayers of trust, thanksgiving, request, and so on.

Lately I've found myself reading Psalms in my personal devotions. I continue to marvel at the wide variety of emotions and tones captured in these prayers. So I've been trying a new approach to praying with the psalms. Lately I've been taking a psalm like 3, 5, or 9 and, without reading any of the verses, using its structure to organize my prayers. Sometimes I'll borrow some language or imagery, but my use of these psalms has been a little bit looser. I've found that starting with different psalms has helped me think about different things I can pray about (and sometimes different ways I can pray about those things). I've also noticed how often the psalm-writers express their trust in God while praying, so I've been trying to do more of that myself. Even after praying for several years now, I feel like I'm always learning more and more about how to pray. I'm glad God gave us Psalms to teach us.

Grace and peace,

BMH