Daily Double: Psalm SeriesSample

WHY PSALM 133?

Psalm 133 may be a short wisdom psalm – but it’s powerful! Wisdom psalms aim to give the reader the mindset of a Godly person. Basically, they help to shape your mind, your decision making and your heart to be more like God.

Unity with others is the focus theme of Psalm 133. The musical term harmony is used as a bit of a metaphor to help us understand why unity is important. If you sing the wrong harmony to a melody – it sounds bad. In the same way, if you don’t get along with others – it’s not good!

The psalm's big idea is that living and developing unity with others is wise, good, and Godly – so do it!

VITAL VERSE

Verse 1 - How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!

The verse sums up the whole purpose of the rest of the psalm: unity is good... so do it!

SUB SKILL: LOOK OUT FOR THE EMPHASIS

Some words carry more meaning than others. Some words are repeated more than other words! Looking for the strong repeated words helps us to understand the passage better.

In Psalm 133, words such as “harmony” and “blessing” carry a lot of emphasis in the psalm! Positive adjectives like “pleasant”, “wonderful” and “precious” also draw our attention to the events they are describing.

Whenever you read, spend some time looking for the words that are all pointing towards one thing. In Psalm 133, it all points toward the benefits and blessings of unity!

SOLO GO: WRITE OUT ENCOURAGEMENTS FOR OTHERS

Wisdom psalms always lead to action – so it makes sense that we should put what we’re learning from this psalm into action!

Think about the people in your life and your relationship with them. Who comes to mind? How close is your relationship with them?

The psalm is encouraging strong unity with others – so why not write out some short encouragements for people who you want to be closer to and send it to them?
It could be a text message, a phone call, a letter – even something more out of the box!

But rather than overthink this very short psalm that has a very clear message – let’s think of ways to put it into action and experience the blessing that is promised from a unified life in relationship with others now!

PRAYING FOR OTHERS

A great way to build stronger bonds with people is to pray for them. No wonder Jesus encourages us to pray for our enemies!

Praying for others softens our hearts towards them and allows us to feel more compassion for their lives. Praying for others also helps them! Sometimes our prayers are an opportunity for them to be saved and experience the miracles of God in their life.

Start by praying for people you are close to: your family, friends, neighbours, school mates. Then, you could pray for people who you don’t really know well but you know their name. Ask God for a closer relationship and for their needs to be met.

Lastly, pray for those who you haven’t met yet but you might meet today in your day-to-day lives! Pray for opportunities to get to know them and for them to know Jesus.

Praying for others works not only to fulfil needs in others lives, but to fulfil the need in all of us to have good relationships with others where our hearts are soft and open to them.