Psalms, Prayer & The Life of Faith

Before I was a pastor, I sat at an SPRC meeting as a member of that committee. During the meeting, somehow I ended up sharing about some personal struggles Dana and I were having at the time. Before I knew it, the committee had surrounded me and prayed for me. It was a powerful moment of witnessing the power of prayer and it changed my life.

That was a season of coming back to faith. I had left faith for a time, functioning for a season as an agnostic. As I came back to faith, through the witness of that committee and other opportunities God put in my life, I discovered the power of prayer. It sounds cliché but I have found it to be true, especially prayer’s ability to change me and connect me deeply with the heart of God.

Since that time, I have had a passion for prayer. Beyond an academic pursuit of understanding the nature of prayer, which I do enjoy, I have a personal passion for the role of prayer in my life. Every morning, I engage in prayer through a prayer book following the daily office. Every evening, I practice the prayer of Examen. There are other ways I engage in prayer; it’s at the core of my relationship with God, and I find in it sustenance for life.

I mention this to say beginning this week and for the next three Sundays, I’ll be preaching on prayer. Specifically, I’ll be preaching about the Psalms and how they mimic the life of faith. We go through times where life is normal and things are generally good; times of orientation. Then, there are the difficult times of the soul, when life is tough and the darkness settles in for a season; times of disorientation. These are followed, always because of our good God, by seasons of renewal and redemption of our suffering; times of reorientation. To see how the Psalms mimic this cycle of life is powerful, for it helps us understand how scripture still speaks to us today.

But the Psalms are also prayers: ancient prayers from our forefathers in the faith. To understand the Psalms is to have a better understanding of what it means to pray, bringing ourselves just as we are before God.

So, I hope you can join us on Sundays to hear about prayer and the life of faith. I’m looking forward to sharing with you! As always, should you miss a Sunday in person, we will have our livestream and my sermon manuscripts are available for reading at tedgoshorn.org.

– Ted