In his book, Answering God, Eugene Peterson notes that The Psalms differ from most of the Scriptures in that they are often not written about God, but rather to God. He writes:“Our habit is to talk about God, not to him. We love discussing God. The Psalms resist these discussions. They are not provided to teach us about God but to train us in responding to him. We don’t learn the Psalms until we are praying them.”

The Psalms are primarily a collection of liturgical prayers. In them, we learn how to respond to God in prayer.

In each of the next two weeks, we are going to look at psalms that are hard to read. They are raw. Painful. Honest. Emotional.

But they are powerful prayers and familiarizing ourselves with them will help us grow in our own prayer life.

This week, we are going to look at my favorite psalm: Psalm 88. I love it because it doesn’t resolve. There is no happy ending. There is no assurance that everything will be okay. There isn’t even a request for God to do anything. The psalmist simply lays his pain before the Lord . . . and waits.

That’s a good prayer.

See you Sunday!