Praying the Blues - Praying the Psalms

It is one thing to read a psalm; it is another to pray it. Brian Doerksen did a wonderful job putting Psalm 13 to music. You can watch a great video of it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AT7wa0tPVU

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Psalm 13

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

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Psalm 42 is another lament that is part of many songs we sing.

Psalm 42

¹ As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, my God.

² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

³ My tears have been my food

day and night,

while people say to me all day long,

“Where is your God?”

⁴ These things I remember

as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go to the house of God

under the protection of the Mighty One

with shouts of joy and praise

among the festive throng.

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.

⁶ My soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you

from the land of the Jordan,

the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

⁷ Deep calls to deep

in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.

⁸ By day the Lord directs his love,

at night his song is with me—

a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹ I say to God my Rock,

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I go about mourning,

oppressed by the enemy?”

¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony

as my foes taunt me,

saying to me all day long,

“Where is your God?”

¹¹ Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

my Savior and my God.