Rolf Jacobson shares an astonishing anecdote from his friend’s life. The story tells of a time when an old evangelist paid a visit to her home. As they were sitting down to eat dinner, her father began the meal with a prayer which consisted of reciting Ps 145:15, 16: “The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”1 When he was in the midst of his prayer, the evangelist interrupted him: “We thank you God that we do not have to burn our lamps with borrowed oil.” Jacobson rightly remarks that with this pejorative critique, the evangelist dismissed the irreplaceable value of prayer uses of the Psalms.2
A belief that only spontaneous, unlearned prayer is real prayer appears to be prevalent among some Christians. However, Jesus’ disciples were immensely rewarded when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1-4). God placed a prayer book, Psalms, at the heart of the Bible not simply to inform us about how people of ancient times prayed but to teach us to pray today. With all due respect to spontaneous prayer, I am arguing here that our conventional, routine prayer lives can be offered new dimensions and power when the spiritual oil of the psalms is poured into our lamps. Here are some ways of how praying the Psalms can enrich, shape, and transform our individual and communal prayers.
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1 Unless it is noted otherwise, this and other biblical quotes are taken from the NKJV.
2 Rolf Jacobson, “Burning Our Lamps with Borrowed Oil,” in Psalms and Practice: Worship, Virtue, and Authority, ed. Stephen Breck Reid (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001), 90.