This year at the Sierra Leadership Network we’ve done a lot with the Psalms. I’ve found this to be a helpful thing. One speaker, Tim Brown, the president of Western Seminary in Holland MI noted that our imaginations are too small a platform from which to pray. The Psalms offer us a much larger vocabulary from which our hearts can read out to God and meet him with his own words. It also positions us in a chorus of millions of men, women and children who have been praying these words for thousands of years. When we pray the Psalms we do not pray alone.

I find that I can pray through a number of Psalms easily. Not every Psalm suits where I am at emotionally at any given time but if I go through 5 or so my heart will find some resonance.

I know that a great many contemporary westerners imagine the Old Testament to be a difficult, ugly fiction filled with angry words and violence. In my post on vengeance I explored how God’s promise to avenge can in fact free us to love those who have hurt us or those who do wrong. This is true of the Psalms as well. Now it may be that you are scrupulous enough to not overtly wish harm on your adversary, but it also may be that you are not being fully honest about your anger, your rage or your pain. Try praying Psalm 55. The heading says it is a complaint about a friend’s treachery. The Psalm is honest about the Psalmist’s feelings. He does not hold back. But he does so in a safe way and invites us to do so well.

If we nurse resentment and a desire for retribution and vengeance, it will breed bitterness in our hearts. If we attempt to control that anger and that hurt through denial, it will not go away, it will just take different shape in our lives through depression or addiction or something else. The Psalms offer us a safe container, a safe spot where we can pour our heart out to the only truly safe One of the universe. He can handle our anger. He won’t gossip. He will understand. He won’t betray a confidence. We can’t poison his mind with our anger, distorted or justified and he won’t take sides inappropriately like even a trusted friend might do. He can’t become polluted by the sinful ways that the wrongs done to us have twisted us and brought hatred to our heart. We can say anything to him, pour out our true hurt and anger and it is safe with him.

You may find not all the words voice your heart today. That’s OK. You may also find words that voice your feelings in ways that you want to speak but wouldn’t dare in front of others. That’s OK. That’s what He’s here to help us with. Not to help us nurse bitterness and hatred, but to help us process what is really in the dark places of our soul and give him our burdens so that we don’t have to imagine we need to recycle our hurts into violence or wrong done to others.