My emotions have been all over the spectrum – from highs to lows to feeling numb. Praying the Psalms has been a life-saver to me during this challenging time.

The Psalms teaches us how to feel and what to do with our emotions, whether we are thinkers, feelers, stuffers, venters, whether we are steady or we are volatile.

Praying the Psalms keeps my soul alive, being massaged by the full, complex range of human emotions and it teaches me what I can expect from God.  It feeds my soul with the full, complex range of God’s character and promises.

Christians have always found solace in the Psalms. For example, praying the psalms was a lifeline for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus: Exploring the World and Wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Laura Fabryky writes,

“The Psalms don’t offer an escape from life; they offer a way to avoid escaping it – a way back from stone into flesh.”

Laura Fabryky

I don’t know about you, but I have frequently felt like stone. When I pray the psalms, God revives my heart and makes me truly human. His Words point us to life!

The words of the Lord are pure words,
    like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
    purified seven times.

You, O Lord, will keep them;
    you will guard us from this generation forever.

Psalm 12:6-7

I encourage you to listen to the rest of the conversation that I had with Erin Davis and Dannah Gresh on Grounded and consider praying the psalms in your own devotional time. Let me know how it goes? I’d love that.