Quote:
Originally Posted by votivesoul
This is fantastic teaching.
One phrase from the Psalms I often seem drawn to, as a refrain in my own times of prayer, is from Psalm 65:2,
O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
Additionally, because my name is Aaron, I sometimes quote Psalm 118:3,
Let the house of Aaron now say, that his mercy endureth for ever.
You are so right on that the Psalms, more than any set of songs, needs to be front and center in a church's worship. Keep up the encouragement! |
One of the things that has bothered me for years is that a lot of people often simply don't know HOW to incorporate the psalms into their private, much less corporate, worship. 'Praying the psalms' is often seen as being stilted and programmed, or 'catholic'. We want to pray our own prayers, we want to be 'genuine and spontaneous'. We can't see how repeating the words of a psalm really constitutes 'praying'.
But consider, how did any of us ever learn to talk? By imitating our parents and others we heard. How many singers begin by trying to imitate other singers? How many musicians start off imitating the styles of other more well known musicians? It's a basic part of education called 'modeling'. Excellence in anything is generally acquired by imitation at first. If a person wants to write well, they should model and imitate the writings of those who write well. If a person wants to sing well, they should model and imitate those who sing well. Once that is done, the individual begins to adapt what they are imitating to themself, and they begin to develop their own style or method.
I now find myself praying routinely in a manner that is very 'Biblical', ie it sounds a lot like the psalms, even if I am not directly repeating the specific wording of any particular psalm. But my praying has been informed by the psalms, due to a conscious, intentional effort to pray the psalms as prayers. And I find my praying has grown by leaps and bounds since I began to do this several years ago.
I have had three major 'leaps' in my prayer life. The first was many years ago when I went to prayer meeting with old half blind Brother Blair. He and I were the only ones there, and I learned that night what 'fervent, spiritual prayer' was all about. I learned it from his example. I discovered the Bible really means 'cry aloud' when it says 'cry aloud'. I discovered what it means to
'travail', and what 'groanings which cannot be uttered' are all about. Brother Blair taught me to pray until I came to the end of my own natural ability and understanding an then to press on, relying on God's help. 'Pray without ceasing' to me came to mean 'don't give up, when you run out of energy and wisdom in the natural, that's when the Holy Ghost is poised to take over, if you'll just let Him.'
The second major leap was when I began to view the Our Father aka Lord's Prayer as a model or template for praying. With that, I always had an 'outline' of things to pray for. And without any hesitation I thank that crazy charismatic preacher Larry Lea for that perspective, that's who I first heard it from. Whatever else he might have been into, he was correct about THAT issue lol.
The third major leap was when I discovered the psalms were not just songs but prayers, and that there was apostolic precedence for praying them (Acts chapter four, eg). Old Brother Blair taught me about the manner of praying, Larry Lea taught me the outline, and from the psalms (and other prayers in the Bible) I learned the content of praying.
I don't claim to be some great prayer warrior, but I can personally see where my prayer life progressed exponentially at each of those three stages.