Why should Christians pray the Psalms? What makes the Book of Psalms so valuable for prayer? If you’ve ever struggled to know what to say to God, the Psalms may become one of your greatest spiritual treasures.
If I could recommend just one book of the Bible to help someone develop a richer prayer life, it would be the Book of Psalms.
That may surprise some people. We might expect the Gospels or the letters of Paul to be the obvious choice. After all, they tell us about Jesus and explain the Christian faith. Yet for thousands of years, believers have returned again and again to the Psalms when they wanted to learn how to pray.
Jesus prayed the Psalms.
The apostles prayed the Psalms.
The early church prayed the Psalms.
Martin Luther called the Psalms “a little Bible.” John Calvin described them as “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer devoted an entire book to praying the Psalms. More recently, Tim Keller, Donald Whitney, and many other Christian writers have encouraged believers to make the Psalms a regular part of their daily prayer lives.
Why?
Because no other book of the Bible teaches us to pray quite like the Psalms.
The Psalms are unique because they are inspired prayers. Most of the Bible is God’s Word spoken to us. The Psalms are God’s inspired record of His people speaking back to Him. They teach us not only what God wants us to know but how He wants us to respond. Every page invites us into a conversation with our Heavenly Father.
One reason the Psalms are so powerful is that they embrace the full range of human experience. Life is rarely lived at emotional extremes. Most of us move through seasons of joy, disappointment, gratitude, fear, celebration, loneliness, hope, confusion, and sorrow. The Psalms contain them all.
When David rejoiced over God’s goodness, he wrote a psalm.
When he confessed his sin after his failure with Bathsheba, he wrote a psalm.
When he fled from Saul in fear, he wrote a psalm.
When he wondered why God seemed distant, he wrote a psalm.
When he celebrated God’s faithfulness, he wrote a psalm.
There is hardly an emotion you will ever experience that is not already expressed somewhere in the Psalms.
That is one reason the Psalms have remained so relevant for three thousand years. Human nature has not changed. We still experience the same fears, hopes, disappointments, and longings that God’s people experienced centuries ago. When we pray the Psalms, we discover that our struggles are not unique. Others have walked this path before us, and God faithfully met them in their need.
Another remarkable feature of the Psalms is their honesty.
Modern Christians sometimes feel pressure to sound cheerful whenever they pray. We imagine that strong faith means never admitting discouragement or doubt. The Psalms completely shatter that illusion.
David cried, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”
He confessed fear.
He admitted loneliness.
He expressed frustration.
He questioned why evil people seemed to prosper.
He grieved deeply over loss.
Yet through all of those emotions, he kept talking to God.
That may be one of the greatest lessons the Psalms teach us.
God is not asking us to pretend.
He invites us to come honestly.
Real prayer is not pretending to have stronger faith than we possess. It is bringing our real hearts into the presence of the real God. The Psalms give us permission to be honest because they remind us that God already knows our hearts. We gain nothing by hiding what He already sees.
The Psalms also keep our prayers balanced.
Left to ourselves, most of us naturally spend the majority of our prayer time asking God for things. Again, there is nothing wrong with bringing requests before Him. Jesus encouraged us to do exactly that. But healthy relationships involve more than requests, and healthy prayers do as well.
As you read through the Psalms, you will find yourself praising God for His greatness. You will thank Him for His blessings. You will confess sin. You will worship His holiness. You will pray for justice. You will intercede for others. You will celebrate His faithfulness. Gradually your prayer life becomes richer because Scripture is teaching you to pray about the things that matter most to God.
The Psalms also reveal the character of God more clearly than almost any other book of the Bible. Page after page reminds us that God is holy, righteous, compassionate, merciful, faithful, just, patient, and loving. Those truths become especially important during difficult seasons. When circumstances tempt us to doubt God’s goodness, the Psalms continually call us back to His unchanging character. We learn to interpret our experiences through God’s promises instead of interpreting God through our experiences.
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of praying the Psalms is that they gradually reshape our perspective. Many psalms begin with the writer overwhelmed by trouble. David fears for his life. Asaph struggles with envy. The sons of Korah feel abandoned by God. Yet something remarkable often happens before the psalm ends. The circumstances have not changed, but the writer has. As he worships, remembers God’s faithfulness, and reflects on God’s character, hope begins replacing despair.
Psalm 73 provides a wonderful example. Asaph begins by confessing that he envies the prosperity of wicked people. He cannot understand why those who ignore God seem to flourish while the righteous suffer. His questions sound remarkably modern. Then he enters God’s presence. His circumstances remain unchanged, but his perspective changes completely. He remembers eternity. He sees life through God’s eyes. By the end of the psalm, he declares, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”
That transformation is exactly what prayer is designed to accomplish.
The Psalms also point us continually to Jesus Christ.
Jesus quoted the Psalms more than any other Old Testament book. On the cross He prayed from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His final recorded words came from Psalm 31: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Even in His darkest hour, Scripture shaped His conversation with His Father.
When we pray the Psalms, we are following the example of our Savior.
Tim Keller points out that praying the Psalms protects us from praying only about what happens to be on our minds that day. Instead, God sets the agenda. We begin thinking about His kingdom, His glory, His holiness, His mercy, and His purposes. The conversation becomes much larger than our immediate concerns because Scripture continually lifts our eyes toward eternal realities.
If you’ve never prayed the Psalms before, begin simply.
Read one psalm each morning.
Move slowly.
After each verse, stop and ask yourself, “What does this teach me about God?”
Then turn that truth into prayer.
Thank Him.
Praise Him.
Confess to Him.
Ask Him for help.
Pray for someone else.
Respond naturally to what you have just read.
Don’t rush.
Some mornings you may spend fifteen minutes praying through six verses.
Other mornings an entire psalm may become one long conversation with God.
The goal is not to finish quickly.
The goal is to meet with your Father.
Over time you’ll discover why believers have treasured the Psalms for centuries. They will give words to emotions you could not express, hope when your heart grows weary, and a deeper understanding of the God who invites you into His presence every day.
They won’t simply teach you how to pray.
They will teach you how to know God.
Continue the Journey
If this article has encouraged you, I’d like to invite you to explore this subject more deeply. I’ve written a fifteen-lesson, question-based Bible study on Prayer, based on Timothy Keller’s outstanding book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. It is designed for personal study, Sunday School classes, and small groups, and includes hundreds of discussion questions along with insights from many respected Christian writers.
The study is available on Amazon, and you can also learn more about it and many other Bible studies at www.MyBibleStudyLessons.com. My prayer is that these resources will help you discover not only how to pray more effectively but also how to know God more deeply through prayer.
