Summer of Psalms
The Psalms by and large are brutally honest to the complexities of life. The righteous man does not always do or think the right thing. The righteous does not always win or prosper the way that he should. The wicked are not miserable, they aren’t wicked in every way, and usually do not receive their justice.
The Psalms are complex in the same way that life on this planet is complex. We can join the Psalmist as he contemplates the path of wisdom and the path of folly. We can sympathize with him when he cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me" or as he prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” He has high highs and low lows. He has great moments of faith and deep pits of doubt and depression.
Athanasius said, "Most of the Bible speaks to us, while the Psalms speak for us." In them we find: delight, fear, anger, joy, grief, depression, gladness, loneliness, love, and loss. While the Psalms allow us to express our raw emotions they simultaneously seek to shape them into righteous ones. In the Psalms, we can approach God with brutal honesty, seeking to be rooted in truth and ready to submit to him.
My prayer is that as we read and study the Psalms together this summer, we will actually find the Psalms not just speaking to us, but speaking for us. Expressing for us what we could not put into words or prayers ourselves.
Join us this summer on Sundays.