Six Ideas for Praying the Psalms: Speaking to God and Others

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.—Col. 3:16

After thoughtfully reading and studying the psalms, we can now incorporate these psalms into our words in both prayer to God and in our words to others. This movement from mind to heart, applied to the particulars of everyday life helps us connect the dots from God’s ancient word to our contemporary experience. They are not some kind of magic incantation but a means to build relationship with our Father and with the family of believers.

Speaking to God

Do you ever feel at a loss during times of prayer? If we faithfully and deeply study the psalms, it is highly unlikely this will happen as the psalms schools us in a myriad of ways to pray. Because of its highly personal nature, we learn how to share with God the deepest parts of our souls.

Here are some suggestions:

Use the psalm as a pattern for your own prayers.

Starting from the top, read the verse, then paraphrase or apply your particulars to it until you work your way through the entire psalm. If you’ve done your study well, this protects you from taking verses out of context.

Meditate on a portion of a psalm throughout the day.

Again, assuming you have done careful study of the entire psalm, you may find that one image or phrase is particularly applicable to you in this season or moment of your life. Using that image or verse, transform it into a short 5-10 word phrase you can take with you into your day to fight fear or temptation or help fortify your commitment to Christ.

Speaking to Others

Another benefit of reading and studying the psalms is you will have a ready supply of God’s truth, often in powerful and comforting form, to share with others. Let the psalms flavor how you speak to others around you. Here are some suggestions:

Use the psalms to help you understand others’ struggles.

Because the psalms are full of heartfelt cries, we can use the psalms to help others put words to their experience, especially the difficult ones. Being familiar with the laments may serve that purpose well. You might ask “Does Psalm 22:1 describe how you’re feeling—forsaken by God?” or “Do you feel that following God is in vain when your non-Christian friends seem to have a better life?” (see Psalm 73:13).

Follow the psalms’ pattern of thanksgiving.

The psalms are not only for bad news but for good news as well. Thanksgiving psalms differ slightly than psalms of pure praise in that they focus on God’s good works of salvation and rescue in their trouble. When others share answers to prayer, follow the pattern of the psalms in acknowledging God’s deliverance in the midst of it.

Speaking with Others to God

The psalms may have started out as personal prayers but they were curated into the national songbook, to be sung corporately. Why not combine the above two suggestions and speak the psalms with one another in prayer to God?

Lament before God with others.

Early on, when the pandemic began, I remember going into a season of deep despair when trying to deal with my daughter’s many limitations in school. My tendency is to complain to my husband, but I knew God alone could bear this heaviness. So I asked him if he would be willing to lament with me.

As it turned out, this was one of the most comforting things I ever experienced. I was able to unload my pain to God, but in the flesh and blood presence of a friend. This helped me to entrust my cares to the right person instead of poisoning my husband with my grief but still allowed me to be honest with him, forging a deeper relationship between us.

Confess before God with others.

Not only do we lament the wrongs in our lives, we confess the wrongs within our hearts before one another. James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to one another and Psalm 32 invites us to do this in a corporate setting. When we allow ourselves to specifically name the ways we have transgressed before the law and the lack of desire we have to obey him, we are blessed. We no longer carry the guilt of our sin, but it also breaks down the barriers we have between one another.

Both of these take courage, but both are powerful because it orients our hearts in the right direction. We often leave God out of the picture but these put Him front and center, while at the same time deepening our fellowship with one another.

Conclusion

As we study the psalms, God trains us in the heart and art of prayer. As God’s inspired Word, we can pray with confidence, creativity, and completeness—covering the entire spectrum of human experience. We learn how to worship God even as we bring our cares before Him.

Learning to understand poetry does take a bit of time, but the rewards are worth it, both in our personal spiritual life and in our relationships with one another. Why not give it a try?

Posts in this series:

Part 1: Speaking the Psalms

Part 2: Reading the Psalms

Part 3: Studying the Psalms

Part 4: Praying the Psalms [you are here]