How can we draw close to God? Sometimes in life God can feel very close while other times God feels very far away. This is not uncommon or new, most people feel like this and have done so for centuries. If we look to the Psalms we can find other people expressing these same feelings and frustrations.
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The Psalms are the hymn book of the Jewish people and just like our modern-day hymn
book it is filled with songs about all the types of experiences that life throws at us. These range from the very happy Psalms of praise, to the lowest of the low, Psalms of lament. There are also Psalms of thanksgiving, wisdom, as well as royal Psalms.
The Psalms have influenced our own hymns and prayers. As you read the psalms you will be surprised how often you come across a verse that you already know. Of course, some Psalms are known in their entirety, like Psalm 23 “The Lord Is My Shepherd.”
When life gets hard it might be intuitive to keep away from lament Psalms as you don’t want to feel worse. This misses the whole point of a lament Psalm. Knowing that someone else has felt just as bad as you do, and is shouting out to God, “WHERE ARE YOU?” can be cathartic. Even Jesus on the cross shouts out the first verse of Psalm 22 “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”
The lament Psalms are more than just cathartic, they also give hope. The end of a lament psalm always finishes with the author remembering a time in the past when things were bad and God came to help them. From this memory the author then thanks God in advance, knowing that they haven’t been abandoned and God will come to their aid again.
While I have spent a large portion of this article on hard times and laments, Psalms are also there for us in the good times. Psalms of praise and thanksgiving can be an echo to our uplifted spirits. These focus on the wonder of God and the grandeur of creation. They remind us that in the midst of all that is going on in the universe God still loves and cares for us personally.
Each day in morning and evening prayer we slowly make our way through all 150 Psalms. It takes exactly two months. As I write this article at the end of June we used Psalms 148 and 149 this morning. Tonight we will finish with 150, a Psalm of praise invoking all the sounds of the orchestra to “Praise the Lord!” Tomorrow we will recite Psalm 1 starting the next two month cycle again.
Whether you are happy or sad, feeling that God is close or very far away, dip into the Psalms for an ancient connection to how others throughout the centuries have expressed these deep human emotions and found closeness and hope in God.
Fr Mark Cooper
