Interestingly, the eleven prayers appear in the Psalter in a meaningful order that group into three types of "O My Soul" prayers, each representing a step in an intimate prayer life. The three A's of connecting deeply with God are: Awareness, Attunement, and Appreciativeness:
- Open up to God (Awareness): "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God" (Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5)
- Find Rest in God (Attunement): "Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him" (Psalm 62:5; Psalm 116:7)
- Give Praise to God (Appreciativeness): "Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name" (Psalm 103:1; also Psalm 103:2, 22; 104:1, 35; 146:1)
Do you pray to God in these ways?
I have a hard time praising God when things are going rough! oh yes, its easy when things are smooth and the path is clear, but lately now I've had a struggle with anxiety and IT is getting in the way of my praise to God! I need ton find a way to get past the anxious feelings and back into the PRAISE THE LORD ANYWAY track! Help!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Lois. It seems your opportunity is to learn to invite God into the anxiety. Trying to not be anxious just adds to your anxiety!
ReplyDeleteAnxiety is a problem with trying to control situations, people, or emotions. First, you need to accept how you're feeling by verbalizing to a friend or to God in prayer.
Then learn to cultivate a prayer practice of submitting and re-submitting the issue to God.
Try holding in prayer before the Lord the thing your anxious about and gently repeating Jesus' prayer: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Or a similar prayer the Lord gave me: "Lord, your will, your way, your time."
Been reading through your posts and it is kind of cool that the verse in this blog was going through my mind today on my walk... it kept repeating itself... Why art thou cast down oh my soul? Hope thou in God. Who is the health of my countenance.
ReplyDeleteI like the part that He is the health of my countenance, but did not quite understand what I am to hope for... to be rescued from the earthly situations or problems? Or the eternal hope that in Heaven there will be no more problems? The eternal hope is wonderful, but it is extremely challenging to hope for help from God here on earth when a person seems to fight the same fight for many years. God is still good, and He has given more than I ever deserved, so complaining would not be right, I am just curious as to what hope David was referring to. Maybe just the hope that God will continue to give strength for each day?