Don't Sanitize the Psalms

In some churches, if our public worship and prayers echoed what we find in the Psalms we might find ourselves called before the church board for correction. Unlike the stoic legalist or safe churchman, the psalmist expressed the full range of emotions in worship. He felt no need to pretend that he had it all together. He did not limit himself to safe clichés about God.

Yet God's people's deeply cherish the Psalms because they openly express many of the emotions we feel. Sometimes the psalmist expressed deep anxiety and fear; other times he was plagued with a sense of despondency and discouragement. He vented anger over injustices and admitted a loss of perspective when he envied the prosperity of the ungodly.

The psalmist reminds us that the language of lament is permitted in worship. Christopher J. H. Wright suggests,

It is precisely those who have the closest relationship with God who feel most at liberty to pour out their pain in protest to God---without fear of reproach. Lament is not only allowed in the Bible; it is modeled in abundance. God seems to want to give us as many words with which to fill out our complaint forms as to write our thank-you notes. (The God I Don't Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith)

The Psalmist's Full Range of Emotions

Although the psalmist pondered dark questions out loud---even expressing feelings of helplessness and despair---more often, he overflowed with joy and praise to the God who is his "mighty rock and refuge" (Psalm 62:7). His astonishment at the compassion and unfailing love of God resounds throughout the psalms as one amazed that God "does not treat us as our sins deserve" (Psalm 103:10).   Continue at Steve Cornell