Week 26
Philippians 1-4 and Psalms 42-66
This week I’m starting to understand why my mom likes the Psalms so much.
I know some of these say “for the director of music” or “to the tune of…” so we can assume some of these are songs but as I’m reading them, they strike me more as heartfelt prayers to God.
We’ve read about the struggles of the Israelites going into the Promised Land and we’ve read about David and his almost continuous struggles- with Saul, with the previous inhabitants of the Promised Land, with Absolom, but here we are seeing a more in depth look at their heart; what the Israelites and David are thinking & feeling.
Now help me- up to this point, have we really read much about “prayer” in the Old Testament? In 1 Samuel, Hannah prays to the Lord but thinking back on Abraham, Jacob, Eli, even Samuel- God speaks to them, right? We aren’t seeing Moses “praying” to God asking for forgiveness when he kills the Egyptian, we see God “speaking” to Moses when it’s time to get the Israelites out of Egypt. Yes we do see the Israelites “groaned” and “cried out” for help- but it still doesn’t really talk about prayer in the way I guess I think about prayer and it certainly doesn’t go into detail about what they say in any prayers they may have been praying. We occasionally read a song of praise, like Deborah & Barak’s back in Judges 5 BUT here in Psalms- we are getting a glimpse of almost like a flashback here. What the people of Israelites are “thinking” or saying to God in their struggles and in their victories. We are “hearing” the thoughts of David as he flees from Saul and his praises for God in his victories.
And even though the Israelites’ journey and David’s life were 1,000ish years apart, their words are not all that different- yes the authors are different so the actual words and writing styles vary slightly, the actual messages aren’t that different. So now let’s fast forward 3,000ish years to today- our words and writing style is obviously different BUT would our overall message be that different? Granted I’m not hiding in a cave trying to escape someone trying to kill me BUT are we not all still reaching out to God saying “help me!!” “Save me!!” “THANK YOU!”
What about you? What are your takeaways? Any ah-ha moments this week? If your prayers were written down and archived what would that tell readers about your heart and current mindset?