How You Can Pray through the Psalms

Praying through the Psalms is an incredibly powerful way to connect to God, no matter what circumstance you’re going through. You certainly don’t have to use the Psalms as a prayer prompt, but when you do, it opens the doors for authentic connection – not just to God, but to your emotions and to biblical heroes of the past, too.

When I am feeling overwhelmed by emotion, it brings me great comfort to know that even King David himself had moments where he just let God have it. He questioned God (Psalm 22), cried to God (Psalm 42), and asked God to kill his enemies (Psalm 109). No emotion was off limits for David to express to God.

When you read through the Psalms and the kinds of things the authors were dealing with, you realize that the people of the Bible really are just like us. Nothing about human nature has changed. We get stressed, fearful, and angry just like the Psalmists do. We dance, we sing, we celebrate together just like they did, too.

Let’s learn how to use their profound words to help open a door into greater intimacy with God.

What Are the Psalms?

The Psalms are the 19th book of the Bible, comprised of 150 prayers and poems by at least seven different authors. Psalms means ‘songs of praise,’ in Greek, and would have been called Tehillim in Hebrew, which also means songs of praise.

They were likely written over a long span of time, collected as a tool for corporate worship. It’s a beautiful thing that we use them for the same thing today.

Why Should We Pray through the Psalms?

1. The Psalms Teach Us How to Pray

Something we can tend to assume about Christians is that once we come to know God, we should automatically know how to pray. But that is not true! In Matthew 6, we see Jesus himself teaching his disciples how to pray with the Lord’s Prayer.

Although prayer can be intuitive, there is also so much wisdom in learning how the ancients did it. Praying through the Psalms can teach you a cadence with God – a rhythm to a healthy relationship. The Psalms can teach you how to present your requests to God, how to bring your heartache to God, and how to surrender to him no matter the outcome.

Have you noticed how many Psalms have the words “but” or “yet” in them? This alone teaches us that our prayers shouldn’t just end with our complaints or desires, but should end in praise and trust in God no matter what.

2. The Psalms Teach Us That God Can Handle Our Tough Emotions

This podcast, called “Why Your Family of Origin Impacts Your Life More Than Anything Else,” highlights the six relational needs every single soul comes into this world requiring. One of those six needs is the need for your parent to be able to handle your negative emotions.

In an ideal world, a young child is able to get upset about their parent’s decision, and yell at the top of their lungs “I hate you!” – and still be loved. Still be cared for. To have the safety to express negative emotions is one of the cruxes of a secure parent/child relationship.

And it is the exact same thing with God.

He is able to handle all of our anger, confusion, rage, disappointment, bitterness… you name it. I’m not recommending outright slandering God – we need to be respectful and reverent of course. But sometimes, life throws things at us that we don’t know how to handle. And no matter how old we are, we always have the potential of throwing a hissy fit. But the beautiful thing about the Psalms is that it shows us that God can handle it.

He will still love us through any negative emotion we can throw at him. It is safe.

3. The Psalms Teach Us That We Are Not Alone

When expressing some sort of pain or even celebration, there is nothing more comforting than hearing the words “me too,” from the person you are telling. We are relational, communal beings. We need to know what we are feeling is valid and is an experience shared by those we love.

Because the Psalms share stories, circumstances, and thoughts from people thousands of years ago, but that are still universal to humanity today, they are able to bring us a level of comfort like little else can. Not only have people stayed the same at our core, but people have made it through the same kind of thing you are currently going through – and were victorious in it!

How to Pray through the Psalms

We’ve established that praying through the Psalms can be powerful for our relationships with God. But how does one start to go about this?

1. Find a quiet, meditative place

Time with God needs to be special and sacred. Give yourself the time and space you will need in order to hear God and to be in tune with the prompting of his Spirit.

Especially if you are going into the Psalms to process some difficult emotions, you will want to be in a place that you can deeply process and let the emotions flow. If you need to be by yourself for this to happen, by all means, prioritize that!

2. Find an author with the same circumstance, problem, or emotion 

There are many ways that you can do this. You can use previous knowledge about the author’s life and find a Psalm that correlates with this circumstance. For example, maybe you already have a working knowledge of David’s life, and you know that he came to amazing repentance after killing Uriah and sleeping with Bathsheba. Because you are going through something in which you need your heart to be softened towards repentance, you search for Psalms that are from that time in his life, and find Psalm 51.

“Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin” (verses 1-2).

Or, maybe you are experiencing ridicule at the hands of someone in power above you, and you want to know how in the world to deal with that kind of betrayal. You could Google search “Psalms about enemies” and flip through to see which Psalm really speaks to your situation.

Or, lastly, maybe there isn’t a particular circumstance or problem that a Psalmist could relate to exactly, since we are living in a different age. But surely, if it’s a profound emotion, there is a Psalm that can help you to express it.

You could Google search “Psalms about joy,” “Psalms about sorrow,” “Psalms about anger,” etc. and surely you will land on what that feels like it could have come from your own diary.

3. Imagine yourself speaking these words to God

Now that you are in a quiet, meditative place, and have found the Psalm that you would like to pray through, it’s time to turn your attention towards God and use your imagination.

Our imaginations are such a gift from God. In fact, our brains don’t really know the difference between something we are powerfully imagining and something that is actually real! This unlocks a wonderful possibility for our relationship with God: being able to imagine ourselves with him so vividly that we experience him as if the experience is physically happening to us. That is the premise of an ancient practice called “Lectio divina” (literally, divine reading). In it, you imagine yourself in the actual events of the Scripture as if it’s unfolding in front of you. Hear the sounds, see the sights, imagine it like you’re really there.

You can immerse yourself in this full experience when you’re reading the Psalms, or you can simply start with praying the Psalm from the first person. The Psalms make this easy, as they’re usually written from the first person—but don’t just read them, experience them!

Connect to each emotion, moment by moment that is being presented. You can go as slow as you need to. Connect with each word that speaks to your current situation. Pray through it as if these are your words to God, from your heart. Immerse yourself as deeply in the emotions as you do the great faith that the author lands on.

4. Borrow the faith of the biblical authors 

Sometimes, we need other people’s faith in God that it really is going to be okay, that God really will come through and take care of us. That’s okay, that’s natural. That’s why God created us to be in communities, so that we can lean on each other when we need to!

So it is perfectly alright if you need to borrow a Psalmist’s faith about your current situation. Maybe you’re like David in Psalm 13, and you’re questioning if God is really there for you:

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

How long will you hide your face from me?

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?”

These words you can relate to all too well. But you don’t want to stay here, and neither did David! You keep reading:

“But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.”

Maybe you can relate to these hopeful words much less than the first few verses. But that’s okay. You know that David was brought through so many trials: being changed by Saul, fighting in battle, his own son turning against him, etc. So if David can trust God to bring him through his numerous and unfair trials, so can you.

Sometimes the Psalmist will share how they got there, like by remembering that God has been good to them, as in the above example. Or maybe by remembering specific events that God has brought his people through (Psalm 77). Sometimes they won’t share what changed their heart, but it is obvious that their heart changed nonetheless.

In those Psalms, you can just know that it was God himself acting to change their heart, in real time, through this process of pouring their hearts out to him. And he can do the same for you, too!

An Example of How to Pray through a Psalm

Although we do not have space to go through the entire Psalm, let’s briefly put this method into action with Psalm 73:1-4.

First, find a quiet space so that you can take a deep breath and hear how God might be speaking to your heart.

Second, find a Psalm that you can relate to. For the sake of example, let’s say that you were searching for a Psalm to help you to process a circumstance of injustice.

Third, let’s imagine that we are the ones speaking these words to God. We can add our own language to make it fully our own.

“When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,”

God, my heart is so grieved by what is happening to me. It feels heavy, empty, and gray. I feel so angry and bitter about what is happening to me.

“I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.”

God, I feel so upset that I feel like I’ve lost my very sense of personhood. My sense of control. I feel blind because of my anger and sense of injustice. It’s almost like I’ve been reduced to an animal before you.

Now, we can take time to borrow the author’s faith.

“Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.”

And yet, God, you’re here. You are with me. That doesn’t immediately change anything about my situation, but somehow it helps. You hold me by my right hand. You know every little thing that is happening to me right now. Even though that is impossible to see right now, the author believes this. And I want to fight to know it too.

“You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.”

God, please guide me. I need you to counsel me. Please speak through your Scripture, your people, and any other thing that will push me in the direction that I need to go. Please be with me through this life. But even if nothing changes down here, I will be with you in heaven for eternity, and everything will be okay. Thank you for your Son and for your love that makes this possible. I am having trouble believing in that love, but I will keep fighting to trust you. If this author can trust you, so can I. Thank you for these ancient words to lend me faith.

I hope that this little exercise helps give you the start you need to start praying through the Psalms! It could be the next tool you need to take your relationship with God to the next level.

Related articles
6 Psalms to Give You Strength
5 Comforting Psalms for When We Worry
7 Psalms to Pray When You Feel Overwhelmed

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Jantanee Rungpranomkorn

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

Kelly-Jayne McGlynn is a former editor at Crosswalk.com. She sees the act of expression, whether through writing or art, as a way to co-create with God and experience him deeper. Check out her handmade earrings on Instagram and her website for more of her thoughts on connecting with God through creative endeavors.