WEEK 26 |
psalms this week |
"Faith prays constantly. The spirit is always attentive to the will of God and knows its own fragility. It also remembers the infirmities of others, understanding that there is no strength and no help anywhere other than God. A neighbor's grief is no less than your own." |
Psalms 76, 77, and 78
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introduction to the Series
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Most of what we learn how to do, we learn from other people. Sometimes it is the learning that comes from specific and deliberate instruction. At other times it is the learning that comes by way of example and imitation. During 2023, our endeavor is to learn how to pray from the Psalmist.*
The Book of Psalms is the longest book in the Bible, and it is mostly a book of prayers. We will spend the year going through the book, beginning to end, and letting the Psalmist teach us by example how to pray. |
In this endeavor, we cannot benefit from his deliberate instruction, of course. What we can do, however, is take full advantage of his example. We will observe how he prays, and we will learn to imitate him.
Our approach will be week by week. The recommended practices and exercises are not daily, but rather suggestions for an individual to implement throughout the whole week. |
Exercises for this week
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Psalm 76
Read Psalm 76. We will divide the Psalm into three sections and deal with each section in order.
Verses 1-3 are not addressed to God, but rather make affirmations about Him. As you reflect on these verses, contemplate your answers to these questions:
Verses 4-10 are addressed to the Lord. As you reflect on those verses, let these questions guide your contemplation:
Verses 11-12 seem to be addressed to a human audience -- perhaps a universal human audience.
Read through the Psalm again in its three sections. As you read verses 1-3, talk to the Lord about what these verses reveal to you about Him. Now read verses 1-3 as a prayer. Make the changes from 3rd-person to 2nd-person, and addresses those verses to Him. As you read verses 4-10, pray them. Make them your own personal prayer to Him. Reword or rephrase the verses as needed in order to make the prayer your own. Finally, read verses 11-12 in the mirror: speak them to yourself. |
Psalm 77
Read Psalm 77. This Psalm is a raw, candid, and very human one, as it moves through a variety of thoughts and feelings. As you read, stop after every two of three verses and jot down what you perceive to be:
Review your notes from your evaluation of the Psalmist throughout Psalm 77. Talk to the Lord about what you have written down. When have your circumstances been similar to those of the Psalmist? When have you felt the same ways? What has been your faith at those times? Read verse 3 in multiple translations. Which one is most helpful or revealing to you? What do you understand the Psalmist to be saying? To be feeling? If you had to explain what is going on with the Psalmist in verse 3 to someone else who had a question about it, how would you explain that verse? Clearly there are points during this Psalm when the Psalmist perceives God to be against "us" -- the One who has abandoned him to his troubles, or even the cause of his troubles.
Read through the Psalm again, think time adding to various statements made by the Psalmist one of the following four labels, according to which you believe best fits what the Psalmist is saying:
Verses 11 and 12 seem to express less what the Psalmist is feeling and more what he has resolved to do. Follow him in his resolution. Take what he has said he would do and spend ten minutes doing it yourself. Talk to the Lord about your experience of trying to do what the Psalmist resolved to do. What do you perceive to be the relationship between verses 11-12 and verses 1-10? What do you perceive to be the relationship between verses 11-12 and verses 13-20? In what ways is the author of Psalm 77 exemplary? What do you learn about how to pray from him? |
Psalm 78
Read Psalm 78. This Psalm is much longer than most, as it recalls large portions of Israel's history. After reading it, what do you perceive to have been the purpose of the Psalmist in writing Psalm 78?
Make a list of things that the Psalmist reports that the Lord did. Reviewing the list you have made:
Make a list of the various human actions, failures, and responses recalled by the Psalmist. Reviewing the list you have made:
Reflect now on the two lists you have made. To reflect on both what the Lord had done through Israel's history and what the people had done is to see a big-picture portrait of the relationship between God and His people. What, then, do you conclude about that relationship? Jot down your observations. To what extent do those observations apply to other relationships that God has had with His people:
What are the merits of writing out such a detailed recollection of what God -- and the people -- have done in the past? Follow the model set by the Psalmist and write your own personal version of Psalm 78. You may either take his approach and write in broad terms about God and His dealings with His people over a long period of time, or you can take a more personal approach and write just your own story and how He has dealt with you through the years. After you have written your version, talk to the Lord about it and what you have discovered. The Psalmist clearly has it in his mind that his Psalm was not just a private exercise, but was to be communicated to other people for their benefit. With whom should your own version of Psalm 78 be shared? |
* We will refer to the author as “the Psalmist,” though of course not all of the Psalms were written by the same person. A significant number are attributed to David. Others are associated with Asaph, the sons of Korah, and an assortment of other individuals. Also, several dozen Psalms have no name attached to them. For the sake of ease and uniformity, we will simply refer to “the Psalmist.”