How to Pray the Psalms: A Guide for Ordinary Days

Some mornings you open your Bible and have nothing to say. Not because you are angry with God, and not because you doubt him, but because you are tired and the words are not there.

Christians have faced this for as long as there have been Christians, and the answer has almost always been the same. Pray the Psalms. When your own words fail, borrow the ones God gave.

In short

To pray the Psalms, read one psalm slowly and say its words to God as your own, rather than reading them as information about someone else. Choose a psalm that fits your situation, such as a lament when you are hurting, a psalm of praise when you are grateful, or a psalm of trust when you are afraid, or simply pray them in order, one a day. The Psalms were written to be prayed, Jesus prayed them, and the church has prayed them daily for two thousand years.

Why the church has always prayed the Psalms

The Psalms were Israel's prayer book and hymnal. They were sung in the temple, taught to children, and carried into exile. When Jesus was a boy he learned them, and when he was dying he prayed them.

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?

— Psalm 22:1 (BSB)

Those words on the cross are the opening line of Psalm 22. His last words, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit," are Psalm 31. In his darkest hour the Son of God prayed with borrowed words, because they were the right words.

The early church did the same. In Acts, the believers pray Psalm 2 together when they are threatened. Paul tells the churches to speak to one another in psalms. Within a few centuries, monks were praying all 150 every week, and cathedral congregations were chanting them morning and evening.

That has never stopped. Orthodox and Catholic Christians pray them in the daily hours. Anglicans pray them through each month in the Book of Common Prayer. The Reformed churches sang metrical psalters, and Luther called the Psalms a little Bible, the whole of Scripture in miniature. Traditions differ on whether to sing, chant, or read them. None of them has ever stopped.

Three kinds of psalm, three kinds of day

The Psalms are not all one mood, which is exactly why they work. Whatever kind of day you are having, there is a psalm that has already been there.

Lament. Roughly a third of the Psalms are laments, prayers of grief, fear, anger, or abandonment. They complain to God, sometimes bitterly, and almost always turn, by the end, toward trust. Psalms 13, 22, 42, 77, and 88 are among them. If you have ever wondered whether it is allowed to be honest with God, the answer is a third of the Psalter.

How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?

— Psalm 13:1 (BSB)

Praise. These are the psalms that say who God is and what he has done. Psalms 8, 100, 103, 145, and 150 are the classics. They are for the good days, and, strangely, for the bad ones too, when you need to be reminded of something bigger than the day.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and bless His name. For the LORD is good, and His loving devotion endures forever; His faithfulness continues to all generations.

— Psalm 100:4-5 (BSB)

Trust. These are quieter. They do not deny the trouble; they rest in God inside it. Psalms 23, 27, 46, 62, 121, and 131 belong here. They are the ones most people reach for in fear, and rightly.

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

— Psalm 131:2 (BSB)

There are other kinds too, psalms of confession like 51, psalms of wisdom like 1 and 119, psalms about the king that the church has always read as pointing to Christ. But lament, praise, and trust will carry you through most days.

How to pray a psalm in ten minutes

Praying a psalm is different from reading one. Here is a plain way to do it.

1. Choose one. Pick a psalm for the day you are having, from the list below, or simply take the next one in order.
2. Read it through once, silently. This is to get the shape of it: where it begins, where it turns, where it lands.
3. Read it again, aloud and slowly, to God. Change your posture if it helps. The point is that you are no longer reading about the psalmist. You are speaking.
4. Stop where it catches. When a line lands, stay there. Say it again. Let it become your own sentence.
5. When you cannot say a line honestly, pray it for someone else. If the psalm is joyful and you are not, pray it for a friend who is. If it speaks of enemies and you have none, pray it for Christians who do.
6. Close in your own words. One sentence is enough. Many Christians end a psalm with the ancient "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit," which turns every psalm into a Christian prayer.

If you would like a slower, more contemplative way through a psalm, the four movements of Lectio Divina were made for exactly this. And if you would like to keep a record of what a psalm gave you, one line in a journal is enough.

When the psalm does not match your mood

You will sometimes open to a psalm of praise on a day you feel nothing, or to a lament on a morning when things are fine. This is not a problem to be solved. It is one of the gifts.

The Psalms teach you to pray beyond your feelings. When you pray a lament on a good day, you are praying with the suffering church around the world. When you pray praise on a bad one, you are saying what is true whether or not you feel it. Both are acts of faith.

The psalmists themselves did this. More than once they turn and speak to their own souls, telling themselves what to believe.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.

— Psalm 42:5 (BSB)

There is an old Christian insight here, put clearly by Dietrich Bonhoeffer among others: because Jesus prayed the Psalms, we can pray every psalm in him. The lines we cannot say for ourselves, he has already said for us.

What about the angry psalms

Some psalms call down judgment on enemies, and they can be hard to pray. A few things help.

They are honest. They do not pretend injustice is fine. Anyone who has been badly wronged knows the feeling, and the psalm gives it a place to go that is not revenge.

They hand vengeance to God. The psalmist does not take up a sword. He asks God to act, which is the opposite of taking matters into his own hands.

They can be prayed for others. Christians facing persecution, children in abusive homes, victims of real evil. The psalm is theirs, and you can pray it on their behalf.

Christians read them through the cross, where the judgment they call for fell on Christ. Some traditions pray every word; some leave the hardest verses out of public worship. Both are trying to take the text seriously, and both are within the historic church.

If a psalm of lament brings up something heavier than the psalm can hold, please tell someone. If you are in danger or thinking about harming yourself, please call or text 988 (US) or your local emergency number. Delighting also lists resources at /crisis-resources.

A starter list of twelve

If you do not know where to begin, begin here. One a day for twelve days.

• Psalm 23, for when you need to be led.
• Psalm 13, for when God feels absent.
• Psalm 103, for when you have forgotten his kindness.
• Psalm 46, for a frightened mind.
• Psalm 51, for when you have done wrong.
• Psalm 27, for courage.
• Psalm 42, for a dry season.
• Psalm 121, for travel, and for the night.
• Psalm 62, for when you need to be still.
• Psalm 130, for waiting.
• Psalm 139, for when you feel unknown.
• Psalm 8, for a clear night sky.

After these, read straight through from Psalm 1, a psalm a day, and let them surprise you.

For more on finding words when you have none, the guide on how to pray when you don't know what to say is a good next step.

Where to begin today

1. Tonight, read Psalm 23 aloud, slowly, to God. Do not study it. Say it.
2. Tomorrow morning, choose between Psalm 13 and Psalm 103, depending on the kind of morning it is.
3. Write one line about what the psalm gave you.
4. Pray one psalm a day from the list for twelve days.
5. If you are not sure which psalm fits the day you are having, ask Delighting: Which psalm should I pray today? The answer will point you to the text, with sources you can check.