Advice for a New Christian Reading the Psalms
Praying God’s Word
All of Scripture is to be read and prayed back to God—whether we’re reading Genesis or Ephesians or anywhere else. We want to read the Scripture, inhale it, and then exhale it out to God in whatever way makes sense for our own life. The psalms are unique in that they’re giving the actual words to do that.
In the Lord I Take Refuge
Dane Ortlund
In the Lord I Take Refuge invites readers to experience the Psalms in a new and refreshing way, featuring devotional content written by Dane Ortlund.
A young Christian, someone that’s new in the faith, can very profitably go to the psalms without needing to figure out how to pray that portion of Scripture. They’re told and given the words, so they can read the psalm not only to understand who God is, to learn doctrine, and to make sense of the world and their own life, but they’re reading and actually uttering these words to God in prayer.
All of Scripture is to be read and prayed back to God.
Actually, their own mind is getting shaped by the Scripture. God is telling them how to think about God. I would encourage such a person to take a psalm a day, or each evening, and build into their life a way of reading the psalms that lifts them in prayer to God, and thereby shapes their own heart towards truth and towards beauty as they walk with God.
Dane C. Ortlund is the author of In the Lord I Take Refuge: 150 Daily Devotions through the Psalms.
