PRAYING THE PSALMS

Lord,
I am about to try again, a new blog, “Praying the Psalms.” I hope to pray and model prayer and perhaps teach prayer. I hope to both draw close to you and to invite others to come along. In this public place, there will be some things shared in the prayers that are personal and some personal things that will be spoken in the silence, between the lines. Those who read, I pray, will also speak the deeply personal and intimate realities of their lives to you. And if nobody else reads or is helped, then Lord, still bring me closer to you as I pray the Psalms.

Psalm 1 (NRSV)
1 Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.

Lord, the promise is happiness. Who doesn’t want to be happy? I confess that I want the blessing. I want to be happy. I want to have a fundamental contentment with life. I want to experience joy and laughter. I yearn for moments of delight. I want to know power of loving and being loved. I want a sense of security and a place to be at home. At the center of my soul, in the marrow of my bones, I want to know that life is good. Lord, grant me the blessings of happiness.

Lord, I’m looking for something of enduring value. When the home team wins, I’m happy but when they lose, the happiness fades. When the sun shines, my spirits are lifted and then they fall as the clouds are blown in. With each pat on the back, I am filled with satisfaction and with each criticism, I am emptied. Lord, I am looking for the blessing that endures the vicissitudes of the changing happenstance and transcends the tides of emotion. Grant to me a persistent happiness, a most stubborn joy.

Lord I pray for the following:
Name those for whom you are praying.

I give you thanks for:
Name five things for which you are grateful.


3 They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
[1]

[1] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989