How to Pray Like David.

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I listened to a podcast called, Exploring my Strange Bible, by Tim Mackie the other day. It was about how to pray like the people who wrote the Psalms. He said the Psalms are there for us to learn how to pray. Many times I have prayed with the Psalms, repeating the words as my own prayer. But he wasn’t talking about that. He was teaching us how to pray like the men in the Psalms.

He said a third of the Psalms are about pain and sorrow. They are called “Lament and Protest Psalms.” In these prayers, David and others give a detailed description of what is going on in their lives how they feel about it. They hold no emotion back.

In our western culture, we don’t usually do that. We tend to think God already knows everything so all we usually do is ask for help. We might say, “Oh God, I’m so depressed, help me.” And I know God answers those prayers. But Mackie said that telling God everything helps us in a different way.

He said people do one of two things with their emotions. They either stuff them deep down and perhaps deny them; or they pour out our emotions to other people. Both of these reactions are more harmful than good. When we tell others all our sad, mad feelings, we can make them feel sad and mad.

For me, sharing my sad thoughts with people has not helped. They usually don’t want to hear it, casually brush me off or try to offer solutions that don’t work. I feel alone and misunderstood.

When I push my emotions aside and don’t deal with them, I become very depressed. I feel alone and despairing. Then I go to a counselor and pay them to listen to me. Which does help, but not enough.

The Bible says, “Pour out your heart to God.” Psalm 62:8, Lamentations 2:19. Mackie says after telling God our thoughts and feelings, then make a request. Don’t tell God what to do, just tell him the situation and your feelings about that and believe me, he will know what to do for us and it will be wonderful.

Mackie says we should do the same thing with our doubts about God. If you are doubting his goodness, then tell him that and then request he strengthen your faith.

Many times the Psalmists remind God of what he has done in the past for people. They usually reference the Exodus from Egypt. Reminding God of his past mercies seems a bit strange to me, but I’ve been doing it because it is a part of their prayers. “Remember how you helped Joseph when he was in jail? Help me too.”

Most Psalms end with praising God for all he has done. I think that is a great way to end our prayers. We start out looking inside ourselves at our sorrow and pain, then around us at the chaos in the world, and we are discouraged. But then we lift up our heads and look at God and know he sees and feels it all; and this life, this world, will one day be over and we will be with the amazing God of the universe and so we praise him.

Jesus: A Man Filled with Sorrow.

Who am I?

I used to be so angry at God for my sufferings. I used to shout at him, "I didn't ask to be born. Why have you let me be born to suffer so much?  If you would have asked me, I would have said, 'No.'"

I have longed for death in the past. Not all the time, but at certain times when life seemed unbearable to me.

The Lord has shown me that he has suffered too and is still suffering now. We are together in this suffering and I can get strength from him if I ask for it. Believe me, I do. I couldn't get up in the morning without God's strength. He has shown me in this war of the universe, I must be brave.

Who is God?

One who suffers beyond compare. One who has lost a third of his sons when they joined Lucifer and fought a war against God, their father. They thought they would be happier without God's rule. They didn't believe him when he tried to persuade them not to leave.  I'm sure they now know they threw away their happiness in wanting to take God's place.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
He is despised, and rejected of men,.... Or, "ceaseth from men"; was not admitted into the company and conversation of men, especially of figure; or ceased from the class of men, in the opinion of others; he was not reckoned among men, was accounted a worm, and no man; or, if a man, yet not in his senses, a madman, nay, one that had a devil: or "deficient of men"; he had none about him of any rank or figure in life, only some few fishermen, and some women, and publicans, and harlots. The Vulgate Latin version renders it, "the last of men", the most abject and contemptible of mankind; despised, because of the meanness of his birth, and parentage, and education, and of his outward appearance in public life; because of his apostles and audience; because of his doctrines, not agreeably to carnal reason, and his works, some of them being done on the sabbath day, and, as they maliciously suggested, by the help of Satan; and especially because of his ignominious sufferings and death: 
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: or "known by grief"; he was known by his troubles, notorious for them; these were his constant companions, his familiar acquaintance, with whom he was always conversant; his life was one continued series of sorrow, from the cradle to the cross; in his infancy his life was sought for by Herod, and he was obliged to be taken by his parents, and flee into Egypt; he ate his bread in sorrow, and with the sweat of his brow; he met with much sorrow from the hardness and unbelief of men's hearts, and from the contradiction of sinners against himself, and even much from the frowardness of his own disciples; much from the temptations of Satan, and more from the wrath and justice of God, as the surety of his people; he was exceeding sorrowful in the garden, when his sweat was as it were great drops of blood; and when on the cross, under the hidings of his Father's face, under a sense of divine displeasure for the sins of his people, and enduring the pains and agonies of a shameful and an accursed death; he was made up of sorrows, and grief was familiar to him. Some render it, "broken with infirmity", or "grief": 
and we hid as it were our faces from him; as one loathsome and abominable as having an aversion to him, and abhorrence of him, as scorning to look at him, being unworthy of any notice. Some render it, "he hid as it were his face from us"; as conscious of his deformity and loathsomeness, and of his being a disagreeable object, as they said; but the former is best: 
he was despised, and we esteemed him not; which is repeated to show the great contempt cast upon him, and the disesteem he was had in by all sorts of persons; professors and profane, high and low, rich poor, rulers and common people, priests, Scribes, and Pharisees; no set or order of men had any value for him; and all this disgrace and dishonour he was to undergo, to repair the loss of honour the Lord sustained by the sin of man, whose surety Christ became.