The Psalms can light our way on the path of change

Published on November 24, 2010 by Celebrate Recovery

One thing about the Bible is that it doesn’t sugar coat life. It tells us stories of flawed, sinful people, who struggled with all manner of "hurts, habits, and hang-ups". And then, besides the stories and character studies in Scripture, there are the Psalms.

Dan Allender & Tremper Longman write, in their book entitled The Cry of the Soul, referring to the Psalms: “Writers and thinkers throughout the Christian tradition have recognized the SOUL-EXPOSING function of this pivotal book of the Bible. John Calvin offered this brilliant insight: ‘What various and resplendent riches are contained in this treasury, …I have been wont to call this book, not inappropriately, an anatomy of all parts of the soul: for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror’.”

 Allender & Longman continue by saying: “The Psalms provoke us to move out of denial. Christians are particularly adept at numbing themselves against painful emotions. ‘After all’, we reason, ‘we should be joyful because we know that God is in control.’ Negative emotions such as fear, anger, or depression are stigmatized as inappropriate because God is love and grants us peace.

 But our spiritual songbook of Psalms does not contain 150 hymns of joy. As a matter of fact, a close look shows that the psalms of complaint and songs of accusation- the music of confusion, doubt, and heartache- significantly outnumber the hymns of joy. We may seek to flee from the feelings inside of us, but a look into the Psalms exposes them to our gaze. 

Again they quote Calvin: ‘[The Psalmists] lay open their inmost thoughts and affections,call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particular, IN ORDER THAT NONE OF THE MANY INFIRMITIES TO WHICH WE ARE SUBJECT, AND OF THE MANY VICES WITH WHICH WE ABOUND, MAY REMAIN CONCEALED’.”

How encouraging to know that we are not alone in our struggles. And how encouraging to know that God has provided us with these Psalms. In Allender & Longman’s words, (The Psalms) “not only teach us how to praise and worship, but also teach us how to wrestle with doubt until it gives way to the first rays of hope. The Psalms light our way on the path of change”.