Category: Psalms (Page 1 of 4)

The Psalms are a treasure chest of songs, and prayers, and proclamations to and about the God of the universe; they are also poems that are full of human emotion and experience. In the Psalms we are given human language to describe God, to draw close to him, and to express our human circumstances on this broken earth.

Psalm 74 appears to be a desperate prayer for help; for God to rise up and defend his people, his name, and his cause of righteousness in the world that he created for his own glory. A descendant of Asaph – David’s worship leader – wrote this Psalm on the front edge of the Babylonian invasion and the subsequent enslavement and exile of God’s people shortly after king Nebuchadnezzar utterly destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.²

Psalm 73 begins the third of five sections in the book of Psalms, and it describes the journey of a believer who finds himself nearly destroyed by the confusion and heartache of being surrounded by wickedness. In the midst of his confusion and frustration, he ultimately finds refuge and understanding in the presence of God, whom he says is “the strength of my heart and my portion forever”.

The Psalm we are studying today is widely regarded as a prayer of David for his son, Solomon, as David is preparing to draw his final breathe on this earth and hand the reigns of kingship to Solomon.²

As we begin our Summer in the Psalms series, studying Psalms 71 – 80, we get to begin with a beautiful Psalm that is meant to guide us in our relationship with the Lord when we are feeling weak, alone, and helpless.

How would you describe your prayer life? Would you describe it as vibrant and full of wonder or dull and lacking? Sometimes my prayer life is a continual conversation with God where I am laying everything at his feet throughout the day. Other times, my prayer life feels like a series of Hail Mary’s in the final moments of a game where my opponent is kicking my butt. That is kind of how David’s prayer in Psalm 70 feels; it feels like David is throwing up a Hail Mary in a desperate situation.

Why do we praise God through thick and thin? Or better yet, how do we praise God through thick and thin, through the good times as well as the bad times? Admittedly, it seems easier to give God the praise when things are going well. But the fact that we have all experienced the difficulty of praising God in the bad times says something about our struggle with believing the truth about God.

The superscription of this Psalm, which reads “A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah”, helps us to understand the unique circumstances that were going on in David’s life when he wrote the words of this Psalm. Whenever you see the word “wilderness” in the Bible it usually means “desert”; like the hot, dry, desert, wastelands found in places like Texas, and New Mexico, and Nevada.

Psalm 61 has been described as a Psalm of Desperation by many commentators.² Desperation means, “Not having hope, filled with despair, a situation of urgency in which a person does not know what to do”.

The superscription of our Psalm today, helps us to feel the emotional tone of the Psalm and to also understand the context of David’s prayer to God. As far as emotional tone is concerned, just like Psalm 58 from last week, this Psalm is meant to be sung during a regular worship gathering of God’s people because the superscription is addressed “to the choirmaster”. This a community worship song.