The Psalms have ministered to countless souls throughout the centuries in Sunday worship and family devotions, at funerals and hospital bedsides. They have given voice to God’s people in every situation and every era of history. They teach us to trust God’s promises, to follow our Savior’s example, and to come before his presence in the community of faith. They express our deepest afflictions and instruct us to pray like children in response to our Father’s words (Psalm 119:92). They walk us through those hard times and direct our hearts to God. As biblical counselor Michael Leister wrote,
In almost every Psalm, after initial sorrow, trust triumphs over fear, and the lament turns into praise (Psalm 30:11). This is only possible because the praying person always relates his feelings and present situation, however dark they may be, to the eternal God and to the two great facts of His existence: creation (e.g., Psalm 121:2; 124:8) and redemption (Psalm 31:5; 71:23; 107:2).1 [1]Michael Leister, “The Psalms Are Special in Counseling,” Biblical Counseling Coalition (blog), October 25, 2019, accessed at https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2019/10/25/the-psalms-are-special-in-counseling.
The Word of God
As the preacher, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, once implored, “Turn the Bible into prayer. . . This is the best way of knowing the meaning of the Bible, and of learning to pray.”2 [1]Andrew A. Bonar, Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1844; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1978), 50, emphasis in original. Yet before we consider the Psalms as words addressed to God, we must first accept them as the very Word from God. For the Psalms are more than simply pleasant poetry or ancient wisdom. They are first and foremost God’s inspired Word. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated, “We learn to speak to God because God has spoken to us and speaks to us. . . If we wish to pray with confidence and gladness, then the words of Holy Scripture will have to be the solid basis of our prayer. . . This is pure grace, that God tells us how we can speak with him and have fellowship with him.”3 [1]Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1970), 11–12, 15. Bonhoeffer also wrote to his parents from the Nazi prison cell at Tegel on May 15, 1943: “For years I’ve read the Psalter daily; there is no other book I know and love so well as this one. . . . Knowing them in this way belongs to the greatest enrichments of my life.” Bonhoeffer understood that praying the Psalms could even correct our wayward hearts:
If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible and especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ. We must ask how we can understand the Psalms as God’s Word, and then we shall be able to pray them. It does not depend, therefore, on whether the Psalms express adequately that which we feel at a given moment in our heart. If we are to pray aright, perhaPsalm it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. If we were dependent entirely on ourselves, we would probably pray only the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. But God wants it otherwise. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.4 [1]Ibid., 14–15.
Thus, we imitate the pattern of call-and-response from within the Psalms. As God’s Word speaks to us, we meditate on the meaning of each psalm: What was the psalmist thinking and feeling? How were his circumstances similar to ours? What means of communication did he use to impact his fellow worshipers? We meditate on each psalm’s precious truths until they transform our soul and shape our prayers. We speak to God as he speaks to us. So, how will we apply God’s Word and live out its timeless wisdom? What difference will it make in our life today? As Joni Eareckson Tada testified,
I have learned to . . . season my prayers with the word of God. It’s a way of talking to God in his language—speaking his dialect, using his vernacular, employing his idioms. . . . This is not a matter simply of divine vocabulary. It’s a matter of power. When we bring God’s word directly into our praying, we are bringing God’s power into our praying. Hebrews 4:12 declares, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword.” God’s word is living, and so it infuses our prayers with life and vitality. God’s word is also active, injecting energy and power into our prayer.5 [1]Joni Eareckson Tada, Speaking God’s Language: Using the Word of God in Your Prayers (Torrance, CA: Rose, 2012).
The Prayers of God’s People
The Psalms themselves were written in the language of prayer as the script and pattern by which God’s people spoke to their Creator. Thus, they “have opened up to us familiar access to God.”6 [1]John Calvin (1509–1564), The Author’s Preface, Psalms 1–35, xxxvi-xxxvii. As Calvin added, “The psalms illuminate the mind for the purpose of enkindling the soul, indeed to put it on fire. It may indeed be said that the purpose of the psalms is to turn the soul into a sort of burning bush” (ibid., 27). Many psalms even address the Lord with direct speech, “O God,” and second person pronouns, “You, Your.” In this manner, they do not merely speak about God, but personally to God. In the words of Athanasius, “Most of Scripture speaks to us while the Psalms speak for us.”7 [1]Cited in Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1974), x. These God-breathed prayers, often written in first person, can be voiced directly from the speaker’s heart unlike other parts of Scripture. This dexterity of the Psalter also enables us to praise the Lord for the varied aspects of his person and his work: “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever” (Psalm 145:1). So, as we steep ourselves in the Psalms, we will never run out of fuel for worship.8 [1]See examples of God’s attributes, God’s names, and God’s images in the Psalms (Steven J. Lawson. Preaching the Psalms: Unlocking the Unsearchable Riches of David’s Treasury [Leyland, England: Evangelical Press, 2012], 46-54). In fact, our prayers will draw us into deeper intimacy with the Lord: “The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant” (25:14). We will reach out to touch God’s heart as we pray the very words he set out for us to pray. “Prayer is continuing a conversation that God had started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.”9 [1]Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 48.
The poetic nature of the Psalms also connects us across the generations of God’s people, for the ambiguity of poetry applies to many different people in many different situations. We all know what it’s like to be “in the pits” like David (Psalm 63) or to be “envious of the arrogant” (73:3). We relate to the shared experience of receiving comfort and consolation from God’s Word (119:50, 76). David’s prayer, for example, when fleeing from Absalom has been the cry of saints throughout the ages: “O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head” (3:1–3). The universal language of the Psalms makes it wholly accessible to any who seek the treasure of its wisdom. As Luther extolled, “The Psalter is the book of all saints; and everyone, in whatever situation he may be, finds in that situation psalms and words that fit his case, that suit him as if they were put there just for his sake, so that he could not put it better himself, or find or wish for anything better.”10 [1]Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 35: Word and Sacrament I [2], edited by Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 254–57.
Over the centuries, believers have also grown familiar with the Psalms because of their common usage in both public and private worship: “The Psalter is the songbook of the people of God in their gathered worship. These songs cover a wide range of experiences and emotions, and give God’s people the words to express these emotions and to bring these experiences before God.”11 [1]ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008). Sadly, the modern church has started to neglect the Psalms in worship and prayer. For this reason, the “Psalms are the most-often quoted Old Testament book in the New Testament. It was the church’s songbook, poetry book, and meditation book . Alongside the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, Psalms was the book that shaped the thinking and feeling of the first disciples more than any other.”12 [1]John Piper, Shaped by God: Thinking and Feeling in Tune with the Psalms (Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God, 2017), 8. One-fifth of the apostle Paul’s citations are from the Psalms. To this day, God’s people still express the language of their prayers through the Psalms. Thus, our prayers have “changed from musical clamor to beautiful music once the Father’s hands grasped the little child’s hands.”13 [1]E. M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1984), 17.
The Prayers of Christ
It is wondrous when we first come to the realization that our Lord Jesus once memorized, prayed, and sang the Psalter himself when he walked upon this earth. He spoke the Spirit-inspired language of the Psalms as he talked with his Father and fulfilled the truths of which they spoke. The Psalms then are the prayers of Jesus originally prayed through the psalmists: “These same words which David spoke, therefore, the future Messiah spoke through him. The prayers of David were prayed also by Christ. Or better, Christ himself prayed them through his forerunner David. . . . It is the incarnate Son of God, who has borne every human weakness in his own flesh, who here pours out the heart of all humanity before God, and who stands in our place and prays for us.”14 [1]Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1970), Psalms, 18–21.
Jesus prayed the Psalms as his very own words. So, the Psalms were ultimately words of revelation spoken both by Christ and also about Christ. For example, Jesus used the Psalms to prophesy his impending death, “They hated me without a cause” (John 15:25; see Psalms 35:19; 69:4). He uttered them as he hung upon the cross in excruciating pain: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1). He also quoted the Psalms to warn the unrepentant against eternal judgment: “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:23; see Psalm 6:8). Thus, as Bonhoeffer claimed,
Those who pray the psalms are joining in with the prayer of Jesus Christ . . . their intercessor. . . . The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for his Church. Now that Christ is with the Father, the new humanity of Christ, the Body of Christ on earth continues to pray his prayer to the end of time. This prayer belongs, not to the individual member, but to the whole Body of Christ. Only in the whole Christ does the whole Psalter become a reality, a whole which the individual can never fully comprehend and call his own. That is why the prayer of the psalms belongs in a particular way to the fellowship. Even if a verse or a psalm is not one’s own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the fellowship; so it is quite certainly the prayer of the true Man Jesus Christ and his Body on earth.15 [1]Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community (Nashville, TN: HarperOne, 1978), 46–47.
“We need the Psalms, then, because they point us to Jesus, who is the source of our salvation. But we also need them because they describe what the lives of Jesus-followers should look like—that is, the qualities that those who have faith in the Messiah are to seek and to practice.”16 [1]William Varner, Awake O Harp: A Devotional Commentary on the Psalms (The Woodlands, TX: Kress Biblical Publications, 2012), 2.
The Prayers of the Counselor
Counselors themselves are also in need of wisdom, blessings, protection, encouragement, conviction, confession, forgiveness, healing, and hope. We find such grace to help in time of need within the collection of the Psalms. A counselor, for example, might pray Psalm 19:14 to request wisdom from the Lord before a session: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” She might even pray this prayer aloud to signal to the counselee that everything which takes place in the counseling session should ultimately glorify God. Praying Psalm 19:14 also declares “that counseling is pastoral work. It’s not some alien adjunct to the church’s ministry, but—as much as preaching and teaching and worship—a ministry of the Word.”17 [1]Ken Langley, “Praying Poetry,” JBC 21:2 (2003), 29, emphasis in original. It reminds everyone in the room that their primary concern is to please the Lord. So, as followers of Christ, both counselor and counselee submit themselves under the authority of God’s Word. In this way, the Psalms are rich deposits of such varied prayers to prepare the counselor’s heart.
The Prayers of the Counselee
When asked what they have done about their problems, many counselees claim that they have prayed about them. Yet a discerning counselor should not accept this at face value. Instead, they should probe further and ask what the counselee has prayed and how they have prayed, since not all counselees may be praying in such a way that pleases God. Some prayers are self-centered, while others are focused on the wrong goals. Like Jesus’ disciples, our counselees need to be instructed about how to pray biblically (Matthew 6:5–15). Thus, Ken Langley proposed that counselees must learn to pray in theological alignment with God’s Word: “Prayer may seem a natural response to trial and temptation—as natural as breathing, some would say. But God knows that prayer—at least the kind of prayer that pleases Him most—does not come naturally to us. We must be schooled in prayer. The Psalms are God’s school.”18 [1]Ibid., 30, emphasis in original. They contain the rich language and the promised blessings of believers from generations past. So, counselees must appreciate the depth of meaning in the Psalms if they would engage in meaningful prayer.
A counselee, for example, who struggles with anxiety can be taught to pray Psalm 4:8 when she struggles to sleep at night: “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” By meditating on Psalm 4 within its proper context, she can rest in the God of peace and put off the anger and anxiety in her heart. Then, as Augustine explained, she can follow the shape of the psalm: “If the psalm prays, you pray; if it laments, you lament; if it exults, you rejoice; if it hopes, you hope; if it fears, you fear. Everything written here is a mirror for us.”19 [1]Augustine, Expositions on the Book of Psalms: Psalms I – LXXII. Augustine even marveled at his sheer delight when he first began using the Psalms in prayer:
What utterances sent I up unto You, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those faithful songs and sounds of devotion which exclude all swelling of spirit, when new to Your true love. . . . What utterances used I to send up unto You in those Psalms, and how was I inflamed towards You by them, and burned to rehearse them, if it were possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race! . . . I read the fourth Psalm in that time of my leisure — how that Psalm wrought upon me . . . when I spoke by and for myself before You, out of the private feelings of my soul.20 [1]Augustine, Confessions, Book IX.
The Psalms, in fact, offer guidance to help troubled souls engage and process their complicated passions. Each psalm addresses a myriad of emotions such as anger, grief, anxiety, loneliness, joy, gratitude, hope, and comfort with the depth of biblical contemplation. The passionate outpouring of these prayers invites our counselees to display their full emotions before the Lord and grants them permission to not hold back. About forty percent of the Psalms are those of lament, for example, yet many were written long after the psalmists had time to process their situation. Thus, the psalmists could express honest and forthright prayers within the measured effort of finely crafted poetry to show how the Lord was transforming their pain into worshipful praise. As our counselees begin to pray with the psalmists, God’s Spirit refines their wayward thoughts, measures any misplaced words, and cultivates their passions as pleasing to the Lord. Then, just as the Psalter ends with praise to the Lord (Psalm 150), we will also praise the Lord as counselees rejoice before his holy presence.
Due to the prayer-like nature of the Psalms, even imprecations can express our longing for God’s justice and for his name to be revered (e.g., Psalm 109). Such curses are the psalmist’s way to cuss without cussing. And although shocking in their language, they serve to sanctify the believer who prays such words aloud: “When one submits to God by praying a curse he or she is no longer free to take revenge, because vengeance is transferred from the heart of the speaker to God, who plays an interested role in the believers life.”21 [1]Dominick D. Hankle, “The Therapeutic Implications of the Imprecatory Psalms in the Christian Counseling Setting,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 38, no. 4 (Winter 2010), 278. Thus, in every form, the Psalms provide the basis for our prayers.
The Prayers of the Church Community
As recorded prayers, the Psalms are intentionally designed to aid in corporate prayer and worship (e.g., Psalm 100). Such psalmic prayer to God is meant to be more than just a personal encounter, for the Psalms cultivate a group discussion within the community of faith: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). The prayers of David (and other psalmists) become the prayers of Israel and then the prayers of Christ. They are now the prayers of all God’s people. And every prayer will eventually arrive at the “Hallelujah” chorus of Psalms 145 to 150 when we gather with all the saints around the glorious throne of our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.