Introducing a New Devotional Resource on the Psalms

Until recent decades, the Psalms have been a mainstay for individual and corporate prayer for Christians. For 2000 years, churches sang and prayed the Psalms so frequently that many Christians knew them by heart. In some traditions (Catholic, Anglican, Christian Reformed, to name a few), this is still the case. But for the vast majority of us who identify as Evangelical Protestants, the Psalms have dropped off our radar.

In our clamor for the latest worship songs, we have lost sight of one of the most precious resources of our historic faith. We cherish the fact that we can come to God just as we are, but our "vocabulary" is rather limited. We naturally gravitate toward certain language and certain topics when we pray. To be frank, our prayers often become unimaginative and dull. Believers can still value the authenticity that comes from spontaneous prayer, while expanding our language for prayer by praying the Psalms.

I'm delighted to share with you a new devotional resource that I hope will strengthen our collective prayer muscles and provide companionship on our spiritual journey. Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends is an anthology of devotional reflections on the Psalms by over two dozen early Christian writers. I've selected a few paragraphs on each psalm by a wide range of voices spanning the first 15 centuries of the church -- Augustine, John Calvin, Gertrude the Great, Mary Sidney Herbert, and many others. Most, if not all, of these writers prayed through the Psalms regularly and would have known them by heart. I found their words inspiring, challenging, and enlightening, and I hope you do, too.

Does your prayer life feel anemic? Are you hungry for a deeper connection with God? Consider joining me this summer in praying through the Psalms. Praying the Psalms contains a reading plan that will take you through the entire book of Psalms in eight weeks by reading and praying just three psalms a day. 

Option 1: Read the Psalms.

Option 2: Read the Psalms along with these devotional reflections.

The devotional is not meant to replace the Psalms, but to be read alongside them. I've set aside June 14 to August 14 to read the Psalms with you. That's 9 weeks, so there's grace built in if life gets crazy and you fall behind. 

All of the Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics are divided into eight "chapters" so that they are easy to read with a group over eight weeks. Each chapter has discussion questions. And each week, you'll find a free companion video on the Sacred Roots YouTube channel in which I introduce the next "chapter" of the book. Here's my introduction to the series:

If you plan to join us in reading through the Psalms, I'd love to hear about your experience! Comment below to let me know that you're joining us. Could you recruit a friend or two to join you? 

This volume is the first in the Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics series funded by the Lilly Foundation. The series is one dimension of the Sacred Roots Thriving in Ministry project led by Hank Voss of Taylor University, which seeks to connect under-resourced pastors with the riches of our historic faith. You can learn more about the larger project on the Sacred Roots website. The Lilly Foundation covered the cost of producing the first 16 volumes, so all the income from sales of the book will fund a second series of spiritual classics. You can order a copy of Praying the Psalms on Amazon. 

I hope this is a rich summer for all of us as we expand our prayer language and practice bringing our whole selves into the presence of God

the house of my soul: learning from St. Augustine

For the Freshman class in which I am a discussion leader, we're reading Augustine's Confessions, an autobiographical account of his life written as a prayer and told with unflinching honesty. Given that Augustine died in the year 430 C.E. his wisdom is surprisingly poignant. Here are some gems worth reading:

"You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you." (Book I: 1,1)

"The house of my soul is too small for you to enter: make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it. Some things are to be found there which will offend your gaze; I confess this to be so and know it well. But who will clean my house? To whom but yourself can I cry, Cleanse me of my hidden sins, O Lord?" (Book I:6)

"Everything I need for health and salvation flows from my God." (Book I: 6, 7)

"Allow me to say something, my God, about the intelligence which was your gift to me, and the crazy employments in which I frittered it away." (Book I: 17, 27)

"I will try now to give a coherent account of my disintegrated self, for when I turned away from you, the one God, and pursued a multitude of things, I went to pieces." (Book II: 1,1)

"But I was quite reckless; I rushed on headlong in such blindness that when I heard other youths of my own age bragging about their immoralities I was ashamed to be less depraved than they." (Book II:3, 7)

"Human beings live on earth for a brief span only, and they lack the discernment to bring the conditions of earlier ages, of which they have no experience, into the same frame of reference with those they know well." (Book III: 7, 13)

When we take time to read classic works such as this one, we begin to develop the discernment to do just that. May it be so!

Tuesday Tidbit: Augustine on parenting

Ok, so Augustine wasn't talking about parenting. He was talking about the role of civil authorities in maintaining a just society. But you have to admit the parallels are striking! Here are his wise words for the day:

"It is a matter of great importance what intention a man has in showing leniency. Just as it is sometimes a mercy to punish, so it may be cruelty to pardon." (Augustine, Letter 153, section 17, [p. 126 of From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, edited by O'Donovan and O'Donovan])

Chew on that one for a while.

Parents sometimes operate as if they ought to spare their children from any and all hurt -- including punishment. We pick up their toys, do the chores they've left undone, and never get around to giving them the punishments we threaten, all because we don't want them to become discouraged or (worse yet!) to dislike us. Eventually we wonder why we can't get them to do anything at all.

The truth is, our kids need to experience real life if they are going to become well-adjusted adults. In real life, people don't clean up your messes. In real life, people don't do your chores. In real life, painful consequences follow bad decisions. If we spare them all this when they are young, they'll spend the rest of their lives thinking that they've been dealt an unfair hand. They'll continue to act like children long into their adult years, thinking that the world owes them something. We see it all the time, and it's not pretty, is it?

Knowing when and how to show mercy is one of the mysteries of parenting. But Augustine is right: mercy and pardon are not the same thing. As the author of Hebrews reminds us,

"Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11 NRSV)

Augustine on Intellectual Honesty

I love what Augustine has to say about the pursuit of knowledge:

"All or almost all of us men love to call or consider our suspicions knowledge, since we are influenced by the credible evidence of circumstances; yet some credible things are false, just as some incredible ones are true." Augustine, Letter 153, section 22, (Page 128 of From Irenaus to Grotius: A Sourcebook for Christian Political Thought, edited by O'Donovan and O'Donovan)

Part of being intellectually honest is recognizing our own tendency to believe what we think we should believe. Academia is full of pressure to believe only what passes the test of "reason," and the church can sometimes push in the opposite direction, viewing intellectual pursuits with suspicion.

Neither approach is healthy.

Life and truth cannot be reduced to reason, just as parenting cannot be reduced to a list of rules. On the other hand, the pursuit of knowledge need not be seen as a threat to faith. If "all truth is God's truth" then He must take delight in our knowing more of His creative work so that we can worship him more fully.

We must go forward with open hands and open minds -- willing to reconsider what we think we know, and expecting that the answers may well be surprising.