AND SO WE BEGIN! I hope many of you will get A Woman of Worship so you have the musical CD to augment your study, but if you can’t afford it, you’ll still be fine.

First and foremost, we must see how the psalms differ from all the other books of the Bible. In The Bible Jesus Read, Philip Yancey tells how when he was feeling low people would advise him to read the psalms. Yancey said, “I would come upon one of the wintriest psalms and go away frostily depressed.” But then he realized the psalms are not like the other books in the Bible. All the other books are written from God to us. But the psalms are written by the psalmist to God. You are actually reading over the shoulder of someone’s honest prayer journal. There are great highs and great lows in the psalms, because life is “bi-polar.” God wants us to come to Him in our sadness and in our gladness and dialogue with Him. We are His “wife” and He wants intimacy with us. He wants us to share our thoughts and feelings — and then be still, and allow Him to answer. He wants dialogue, for you are His Beloved. Because the psalms are inspired by the Holy Spirit, they also teach us to pray, and we can use them as a primer. Because the psalms were meant to be sung, we will be singing — and that will etch them in your heart so you can sing them and pray them wherever you are.

Jump in and invite your friends. This is a perfect summer study for if you miss some posts, you can still jump right back in. So glad you are with us! You’ll have the week to work through this post. Because there is a song to learn, start learning it today!

1. What is unique about the book of psalms? List everything you can.

2. Meditate on Psalm 5:1-3. What does David say he is doing. Describe how this shows a dialogue.

3. Listen to this musical rendition of Psalm 5:1-3 from Maranatha. It’s an easy one to learn — let us know if you listen to it — and let us know if you learn it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g7LKCO_iSI

This is the KJV set to music:

Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.

²Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

³My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

4. Now go slowly through Psalm 5:1-3. Look at each phrase. Meditate. Share your meditations.

5. Finally — do what the psalmist did.

Share your meditations, your thoughts, your heart with the Lord in the morning.

Lay your requests before Him and wait in expectation.

Write down any impressions He gives you. You are dialoguing, remember!

Writers call it “the take-a-way.” What is the “take-a-way” of a book?

I am in Wisconsin now, where “Forget-me-nots” blanket the woods in May.

What does God speak to you from The God of All Comfort that He wants you to remember? That He wants you to “Forget-Me-Not?” What two or three sentences might you put in the inside cover of your book?

I’d love to have sentences that were clear, concise, and contained a word picture, like the many we saw in the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs used in this book, for word pictures stay in your heart.

I’m eager to hear your final “take-a-way.” What do you want to “Forget me not?”

When we don’t back away from the Lord, the enemy cannot win, for the Lord uses even the hardest things in our lives for good, turning ashes into beauty.

One of the hardest things for me was regret. Regret that I had not stopped speaking, that I ever left Steve during his illness. What could God do with that? It was too late.

But the enemy is a liar. I could walk in repentance. Though I couldn’t be with Steve, there were people I could be with. God gave me an opportunity the year after Steve died with my mother. She was failing, at 93, and I determined to seize days with her. My mother was confined to a wheelchair and had dementia. She couldn’t remember what happened the day before. Each day when I went to see her, she whooped in joy, as if she hadn’t seen me in six months.Mother loved to sing the hymns. We’d sing and sing and sing. But though she knew the hymns, I did not have confidence that she really knew Jesus.

That Easter, shortly after her 93rd birthday, my son J. R. visited her and read her the story of the resurrection. He said, “Do you believe this, Grandma?”

She said, “I don’t know, J. R.”

J.R. was so burdened he went back to our cottage and prayed and prayed, then returned, and shared his simple testimony with his grandmother. He asked, “Have you ever trusted Christ, Grandma?”

She said, “I don’t think I have. Would you help me?”

And J. R. led his grandmother, his grandmother with dementia, to the Lord.

I visited her shortly after that. Because of her dementia, she often forgot Steve had died. One day she asked, “Is Steve coming today?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. Remember? Steve died.”

“Oh!” She said, biting her lip. “Oh!”

Then, after a moment she said, “Dee Dee, I’m going to find you a husband.”

I smiled, wondering about her resources. “Mother, I don’t want another husband,” I paused. “I don’t think I even want a dog.”

She wrinkled her brow, pondering this. She nodded. “I don’t think I do either.”

“Oh Mom, ” I laughed, trying to picture her with either.

Then I squeezed her hand and said, “We have Jesus.”

“Yes,” she smiled, “We do.”

A few months later, Mother’s life was ebbing away. I pleaded with God to let me be with her when she died. The whole amazing story is in The God of All Comfort, but I will tell you He allowed me to be with her.I will never forget the moment when she looked up with a radiant face and the nurse in the room said to me, “Dee — look, the King is coming.” And He came and took her.

When Jesus came, He opened the scroll of Isaiah and read:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
² To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
³ To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

1. Meditate on the above, going slowly, reading as a lover reads, contemplating the images. What are some of the ways Jesus can turn our ashes into beauty? What do you see in this passage?

2. Do you have regrets? Though you cannot undo the past, how can you walk in repentance now?

3. Give an example of how Jesus is turning your ashes into beauty.

Happy Mother’s Day to every physical and spiritual mother. And Happy Mother’s Day, Mother! It gives me enormous joy to know you are with Jesus, and filled with all that is beautiful.