WHY GOD GAVE US THE PSALMS

Brian Hedges When our son Matthew was just two or three years old, he informed Holly and me that he couldn’t skate. “I can’t skate. I can’t skate,” he said. We didn’t really get it, until we realized that he was sick, but didn’t know how to tell us. He needed words and couldn’t find the right words to say, so he quoted what he knew best: Winnie the Pooh!We all sometimes struggle to find words to express our feelings.That’s why God gave us the Psalms. An Anatomy of All the Parts of the Soul The sixteenth century Reformer John Calvin called Psalms “the Anatomy of all the parts of the Soul” and observed that There is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn . . . all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated. Or, as someone else noted, while the rest of the Scripture speaks to us, the Psalms speak for us. The Psalms provide us with a rich vocabulary for speaking to God about our souls. When we long to worship, we have psalms of thanksgiving and praise. When we are sad and discouraged, can pray the psalms of lament. The psalms give voice to our anxieties and fears, and show us how to cast our cares on the Lord and renew our trust in him. Even feelings of anger and bitterness find expression in the infamous imprecatory psalms, which function something like poetic screams of pain, lyrical outbursts of anger and rage. (The point being honesty with your anger before God, not venting your anger at others!) The Drama of Redemption in the Theater of the Soul Some of the Psalms are downright bleak. Take Psalm 88, which contends for one of the most hopeless passages in all of Holy Scripture. But even those psalms are helpful, for they show us that we are not alone. Saints and sinners from long ago also tread through the valley of death’s dark shadow. You’re not the first person to feel enveloped in the hopeless fog of despair. But more than that, the psalms, when read as a whole, depict the drama of redemption in the theater of the soul. Some biblical scholars have observed three cycles in the psalms: the cycles of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. · Psalms of orientation point us to the kind of relationship with God we were created for, a relationship marked by confidence and trust; delight and obedience; worship, joy, and satisfaction. · The psalms of disorientation show us human beings in their fallen state. Anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, depression, anger, doubt, despair – the whole kaleidoscope of toxic human emotions find a place in the Psalms. · But the psalms of reorientation portray reconciliation and redemption in prayers of repentance (the famous penitential psalms), songs of thanksgiving, and hymns of praise that exalt God for his saving deeds, sometimes pointing forward to Jesus, the Messianic Lord and Davidic King who will fulfill God’s promises, establish God’s kingdom, and make all things new. Most individual psalms fit into one of these categories, while the psalter as a whole largely moves from disorientation to reorientation, from lament and complaint to worship and praise. These cycles mirror the basic story line of Scripture: creation, fall, and redemption. We were created to worship God. As the old catechism says, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But the fall and personal sin leave us disoriented. Our lives, more often than not, are fraught with anxiety, shame, guilt, and fear. But when we encounter our redeeming God in the midst of those distressing situations and emotions, we respond with renewed penitence, worship, thanksgiving, hope, and praise. ◄ Previous Page Next Page ► Page 1 Page 2 Whole Article