God our helper,
show us your holy ways and teach us your paths.
By your Holy Spirit
open our minds
that we may be led in your truth
and taught your will.
Then may we praise you
by listening to your Word
and by obeying it.
Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Reading Psalms in big bunches like this is still not my favorite way to read Psalms, but there is blessing in this journey as well. Each Psalm could have a book of notes for it. Do you find yourself singing a variety of lines from different songs? I do (I was singing three fairly contemporary songs just reading Psalm 42).
Many of the Psalms seem to come from a group setting, and it is interesting to picture Israel using them in worship. Psalm 28, for example, is a cry out to God with a lot of “me” and “my,” but then in verse 5 the Psalmist makes a subtle switch from calling God “you” to calling him “he.” The leader is reporting God's answer to the group, so the Psalm now shifts from hurt to joy. You can almost picture the call and response, much like we do with our time of confession and assurance of God’s grace every Sunday.
Psalm 38 is another strong lament. It ends with two verses crying out for deliverance. In those 2 verses the Psalmist uses 4 different names for God. This is a good example of how “LORD” (the covenant name for God focusing on the relationship and promise) is distinguished from “Lord” (a title of the true God with a focus on the authority and majesty of a ruler). Both are used in these two verses.
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