This is the time of year when I typically write something about reading the Bible in the coming year. This year I wrote a piece for a friend who is learning to read the Bible that focuses on Psalms. Below is the first part of my letter, with more to follow.
I hope there is something here for you.
Love,
Bob
Why
Read the Psalms Daily?
Robert L.
Withers
December
2025
Dear Apelles,
For
years now I’ve been asking God’s People to read the psalms daily, knowing that
if they do that their lives with change for the better as they draw closer to
Christ. Explaining why we should read the psalms is like trying to explain why
someone should visit the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, everyone’s experience is
different while being the same. The vastness and diversity of Yellowstone, of
the Grand Canyon, and of Psalms envelop us – and while we may each be drawn to
different facets, we all experience wonder and awe…unless of course we are
simply tourists. Yes, many tourists visit the Bible and never “see” or
experience the Bible, just as crowds of tourists visit our National Parks and
never really “see” or experience them, they might as well have gone to an
amusement park.
I
am going to try to share just how incorporating the psalms into our lives can
be transformative, and how our living in Psalms can be a blessing to those
around us.
Our
Common Experience
The Psalms represent the common
experience of humanity. From euphoric praise to deep despair and resignation.
From certain faith to doubt, from courage to fear, from friendship to betrayal;
from feeling closer than ever to God to thinking you are rejected by Him. In
Psalms we see deep repentance and contrition, and wonderful assurance of
forgiveness and salvation. We read of bullies and crooks seeming to have the
upper hand, of unjust rulers, and of God working His purposes in the face of
overwhelming opposition. In Psalms, things are not always as they appear.
In Psalms we learn that we are
not accidents looking for a place to happen but that we have a Divine purpose.
We learn that we are not alone, there are others on pilgrimage with us, and we
are under the care of our Good Shepherd.
It is unlikely that we, or anyone
we know, will ever experience anything that is not represented in Psalms.
The Psalms are raw and honest,
and there are some not for the faint of heart, such as Psalm 88. A friend once
called me about Psalm 88, telling me that there was no hope in this passage. I
suggested that he keep moving through the psalms, and I pointed him
particularly to Psalm 118, a psalm which embraces the Crucifixion and
Resurrection. You see, Psalms is not just about the moments we experience,
Psalms is about the life we live. We will all have terrible moments, we will
all have doubts and fears, we may all know betrayal; Psalms teaches us how to
live through these experiences, and it does so with raw and unvarnished
language and imagery. Life is a contact sport, Psalms coaches us how to live
through the contact, how to get up off the ground; and perhaps more
importantly, it shows us how to help others.
The person for whom Psalms has
become the fabric of life, is a person who will always have a place to go for
prayer, counsel, and comfort. This is also a person who has something to offer
others, for we will never meet a person in need for whom there is not a psalm
for the person’s circumstance and experience.
Now you may think, “There are 150
psalms, how will I ever learn them all?”
Well, I am certain that you
probably know at least 150 tunes and lyrics, if not all the lyrics to a song,
some of the lyrics; if you know some of the lyrics you can always look up all
of the lyrics.
Since Psalms is written in verse,
if we use a translation that honors and respects the original Hebrew poetic
structure we may be surprised at how our memories absorb these expressions of
faith and life. This is also why daily reading is critical, this allows Psalms
to enter our hearts and minds and souls, to be engrafted within us, to become an
element of our nature. Beyond Psalms becoming part of our nature, they also
bring us into the Nature of Christ.
Helping
Others
When I was a lad doctors still
made house calls, carrying black medical bags with them. I vividly recall our doctor
and his black bag in the living room of our suburban home outside Washington,
D.C. As a young boy, there was something reassuring about our physician and his
bag of healing in our home – there was a presence about them, they were joined
together, I could not have imagined one without the other.
Suppose our doctor had arrived
without his black bag? Suppose he came into our home without his stethoscope, thermometer,
tongue depressors, blood pressure monitor, and the many other medical helps
common to his practice? Suppose when
asked, “Doctor, it’s great to see you, but where is your black bag?” he
replied, “I don’t carry it anymore. I’ve decided I don’t need it”?
The book of Psalms is our black
bag. It consists of not only 150 portals to God, it represents not only 150
doors through which we can enter the Presence of God, but since its sum is
greater than its parts, it represents endless possibilities of Divine communion
and healing and friendship. It also contains pathways to deep relationships
with our brothers and sisters. We might say that the inside of the black bag is
greater than the outside of the bag.
A difference between Psalms and
the physician’s black bag is that while the doctor must master his medical
devices, we cannot master Psalms, Psalms must master us. While the tools of
medicine must be mastered by the doctor, disciples of Christ must be mastered
by His Word. (I want to be quick to point out that good medicine is more than
science, it is more than technology – I am only focusing on a narrow aspect of
it right now.) While the black bag may serve the physician, we must serve
Psalms.
We listen to others, we observe
others, we pray for others, we hear what the Holy Spirit says, and we discover
where Psalms takes us in service to others. What doors to our Good Shepherd
might we open for others through Psalms?
Because Psalms covers the depth
and breadth of human experience, even if we have not personally experienced
something…such as betrayal or depression or a sense of hopelessness…in Psalms
we have encountered people who have, and can therefore say, “I know someone who
has had that experience, let me take you to him.”
Consider Psalm 22 which begins,
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Yet it concludes with praise (verse
25) and a statement that God will perform and complete His purpose (verse 31).
Also consider that the psalm of the Good Shepherd follows Psalm 22, a psalm in
which a Table is prepared for us in the presence of our enemies. Psalm 22 moves
from gut wrenching agony to glorious praise and assurance.
I have taken Psalm 23 from my
black bag more than any other psalm. I have shared it in hospitals, in homes,
while shopping, in small groups, in venue after venue. I have prayed Psalm 23
for myself in the storms of life, amid worries and anxieties and uncertainties.
Psalm
23 allows me to say to anyone I meet, with absolute confidence, “I won’t
pretend to say that I understand what you are going through, or why you are
experiencing what you are experiencing, but I can say with certainty that your
heavenly Father, your Good Shepherd, wants to reveal Himself to you through
this, He wants to walk with you through this, He desires for you to know and
sense His love and care for you through this."
We
can wear Psalm 23 the way a physician wears a stethoscope, always using it to
listen to hearts and lungs, to spirits and souls…and responding with love,
care, and mercy.
to be continued....
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