Open and Unafraid: A 5-day Journey Through the PsalmsSample

The psalms teach us how to pray as Jesus Himself prayed. On the one hand, to pray with Jesus in this way is to pray with the one who, as the True Human, enables all faithful prayers. In praying this way, we are reassured that God attends to every aspect of our humanity. He sees and loves us. All aspects of our life, “all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries,” in Athanasius’s words, are carried up in Jesus’ own prayers and faithfully offered by the Spirit to the Father.*

On the other hand, to pray with Jesus in the psalms is to pray with the one who embodies our prayers. With Jesus, we, too, feel forsaken. With Jesus, we, too, feel God’s protection against enemies. With Jesus, we, too, feel the grief of loss and the pain of suffering. With Jesus, we, too, feel the life of God’s Spirit making us new again and feel our beloved nature as a son or daughter of God. And with Jesus, we, too, find ourselves singing the praises of God with grateful hearts in the middle of the community, free to be vulnerable and fully alive.

The psalms do not ask me to figure out my prayer life alone. They also offer me the company of friends to pray with me. When I pray the psalms, I can be confident that I will hear the voice of saints and sinners in them. I can be confident that I will hear the voice of Christ in them. And I can be confident, in the words of Psalm 66 [AN1] as Eugene Peterson translates it, that God will come on the double when He hears my prayers, however wholehearted or half-hearted they may be: “Blessed be God: He didn’t turn a deaf ear, He stayed with me, loyal in His love” (Ps. 66:20 the message).

* Athanasius, On the Incarnation (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977), 103.