Intro to Psalms

Personally, I've struggled with Psalms my whole life. I mean, it's the longest book in the Bible, so that makes it pretty overwhelming. Then every time I try to read it, it feels like I'm reading the same thing over and over and over... and over and over... and over again. "God, why is my life so hard? Why am I facing these trials? Why are my enemies winning? But every time I come back to You, everything is beautifully hunky-dory!" Just about every Psalm holds at least loosely to that format, and I can't always quite follow how the Psalmist goes so fluidly from such devastation to such peace. When it doesn't follow this path, a Psalm begins with this elaborately poetic praise of how awesome God is, and as I'm reading my Bible looking for something to apply to my life, I'm sure that the Psalmist was really feeling God in that moment, but I'm generally not so much.

So I keep trying to read through Psalms because people tell me that they are "powerful," but I start with Psalm 1 (which is great, don't get me wrong), but once I go into Psalms 2 and 3, I start seeing the same thing and then I give up until the next time I am struck with the inspiration to try again... starting with Psalm 1. Then 2 and 3. Etc.

But every now and then, especially the past couple of years, God uses a Psalm to show me something awesome.

So instead of trying to read through the Psalms, I'm going to keep my feelers out for those ones that God speaks to me with, and I wanted somewhere to write down what I learned. So maybe, with this blog, I'll stop just giving up on Psalms all together, and perhaps God can show you something in the Psalms, too.

The title of each of these posts is going to be a Psalm. I'd encourage you to read the Psalm first, so that God's words are in your head before you start reading mine. Who knows? Maybe God has something entirely different in mind for you to take away. The Psalms are still God's word to us, and I shouldn't ignore them just because they are daunting. They can be truly powerful!