Part 2
The Psalmic Experience
Chapter 4
Choosing to Believe
In Part 1, the basic principles of psalmic prayer were introduced, both what is meant by praying the Psalms and how to do it. In Part 2, the spirituality we encounter as we pray different kinds of psalms will be the focus. Psalmic spirituality is quite different from most forms of modern spirituality, and that means that some of the Psalter's most prominent features might be challenging for us to put into practice. For me, there was a pretty steep learning curve to this kind of prayer. Hopefully sharing some insights might shorten that curve for you.
This is the point where most books about the Psalter begin categorizing psalms by topic, as if what we really need is a good filing system. In general, I am wary of this. I have yet to find a psalm that fits neatly into a single category, and I find it unpleasant to decide what a psalm is before encountering it in prayer. In fact, you will find that your impression of most every psalm will change over time, as its meaning grows, or your need for it evolves. I also believe that having categories only encourages us to cherry pick the Psalms, something that severely limits our psalmic experience. Knowing just the right psalm to pray will sometimes come in handy, but getting stretched by an unexpected psalm will be far more rewarding.
Instead of exploring the different categories of psalms, we will explore the different kinds of experiences we have as we pray them. Each psalm takes us through a different experience with God. Sometimes, the psalms will seem as contradictory as human experience, but that's part of the Psalter's charm. One psalm will encourage you to quietly trust God regardless of your situation, while another may question God aggressively because of it. Even the proximity psalms may seem incongruent. Psalm 87, for example, prances about as if Zion were the envy of the world, while Psalm 88 spirals into the darkest hell.
This experiential dimension is more helpful than the sanitized categories of the typical psalm study. Those categories make the Psalms sound like they belong in a scientific lab rather than the chaotic world of a prayer closet. We will touch on some traditional categories as we go, but we will mostly consider those spiritual features that are too broad or too subtle to fit nicely into a single package.
It is one of these broad-but-subtle features that begins our discussion. The first thing we will consider is the experience of belief. Most of us probably think of belief in terms of believing particular doctrines, like the deity of Christ or the atonement. In the Psalter, however, belief is more immersive and existential. In fact, belief is the fundamental experience behind each and every psalm, so it is a wonderful place to begin our exploration of the Psalter.
The Natural and the Supernatural
David's victory over Goliath is one of the high points of the Old Testament. While the world looks at this story and sees an inspiring tale, people of faith see nothing short of a miracle. God went to war that day. Little did Goliath know that he faced God rather than David. Because of that, Goliath was the one outmatched in the valley of Elah, not David. The smallness of God's instrument simply underscored God's power. It was a moment charged with supernatural overtones.
David's speech in front of Goliath is one of the greatest in all the Bible. "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied" (1 Samuel 17:45). David was the tip of the Lord's spear and the extension of his will. I highly doubt that David would step onto the battlefield if he didn't believe God was fighting alongside him. This wasn't a story of strength meeting strength, this was a story of faith and deliverance. It is so extraordinary that we are hard-pressed to see anything other than divine intervention.
Compare that, however, with the events that took place in 1 Samuel 21. By that point, things were decidedly less supernatural. David stumbled into the tabernacle and swindled the priest out of some bread and Goliath's sword. Immediately after, David arrived in Gath, which was Goliath's hometown. The people of Gath were terrified of David. They had heard rumors that he killed thousands of warriors, and they certainly would have recognized Goliath's sword at his side. Little did they know that this was a very different David. This was a hobo. The man who once led armies now schemed to stay alive. And, in one of the Bible's more pitiful moments, David changed his behavior so the people of Gath wouldn't come near him. As Samuel says it, David "made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard" (1 Samuel 21:13).
The Gath story is as spiritually anemic as the Goliath story had been vibrant. Watching David survive by charade is painful, and it's hard not to think that David had lost faith in the Lord. We get no sense that David was chosen by God or was being directed by him. David never prayed for deliverance or announced the power of God. He even managed to break a few commandments along the way. First Samuel 21 is just a story of a person on his own, a story that could be about anyone in the ancient world. The God that fought at David's side in the valley of Elah is a distant memory.
Yet this isn't how David saw it. He let the spittle run down his beard and then wrote a psalm that expressed God's care for his children and his power to save. Never mind that God's care and his power are two things that appear to be absent in the actual story. It's hard to imagine anything spiritual coming from such an unspiritual ordeal, but the events of 1 Samuel 21 were actually the inspiration for one the great psalms of deliverance.14 Here are some highlights from it.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him,
and delivers them.
Psalm 34:7
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the LORD
lack no good thing.
Psalm 34:10
Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Psalm 34:13
When the righteous cry for help,
the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
Psalm 34:17-20
Psalm 34 casts a natural event in a supernatural light. In fact, David sounds like he is describing a moment with as much spiritual significance and moral clarity as the Goliath event. David is radiant, not a beggar. God is vigilant, not silent. In Psalm 34 the righteous never lack food and never lie or deceive. Ironically, in 1 Samuel 21, David did both. David, however, is oblivious to the irony; faith usually is. It's as if he saw one thing with his eyes but something different with his heart. I wonder if he would be embarrassed if he knew that believers in our day knew what really happened in Gath. If I were David, it would embarrass me.
Once, while backpacking in the Ozark Mountains, I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a bear. The bear stood on his hind legs and my heart dropped to my feet. But I was an experienced hiker and knew how to handle that situation: I made noise and walked away as casually as possible. When I told friends of my little adventure, I handled it differently than David. I was glad that I didn't die, but I wasn't going to make it more spiritual than it was. It was a black bear not a grizzly, so it is basically an oversized raccoon. And I handled the whole thing myself. I gave God less credit rather than more. That's my usual way. I only let God have his miracles when miracles are the only option left.
But my outlook on life had to change when I started praying the Psalms. The spiritual exuberance of Psalm 34 is normal in the Psalter. When we pray the Psalms, we regularly speak to God as if we are his top priority, literally the apple of his eye (Psalm 17:8). The Psalms force us to speak as if our life circumstances are the spot where the eternal scales are being weighed. If you study the Psalms instead of praying them, you don't have to take part in this exaggeration. You can observe, take note, then dismiss. Our goal, however, is to enter their spiritual environment. We want to participate alongside them by letting their words become our words. And psalmic words are dramatic. Whether we like it or not, their supernatural drama becomes our supernatural drama.
The Psalms will not let you draw the line between what you have done on your own and what the Lord has done on your behalf. That line doesn't exist in the Psalter. For some Christians, that will be a comfort because they know that God is active and near, so the Psalter will give voice to how they already see the world. For other Christians, ones like myself, praying the Psalms challenges the very core of our cynical worldview. The Psalms assume that an all-powerful God can and will do all-powerful things. The Psalms assume that God is always at the ready and is an active participant in our lives.
God as an Active Participant
My wife loves to tell a story that is similar, but different, from...
