Psalms Archives - Invitations to Ascend

April 21, 2020September 17, 2020

Lament: an invitation

In these times of the coronavirus crisis, I’m finding myself drawn to the practice of lament.

A lament is a passionate expression of grief, often in a creative form, like a poem or song. It is an honest, unfiltered, intense offering of hard, painful thought and emotion to God. It is clearly something that a reader of the Bible like myself should be no stranger to. After all, the whole book of Lamentations is a series of laments about the destruction of Jerusalem. It is estimated that two thirds of the Psalms are laments.

April 16, 2020September 17, 2020

Longing for God and the Gift of the Desert

For many years I longed for God. I wanted to know him, to see him, for a depth of relationship that was neither superficial nor non-existent. But while this was the longing and cry of my heart, my experience was far different. Despite my efforts, God seemed remote. I would read my Bible, I would pray, but the times that God appeared to draw near were rare. For me, this was my reality for more than fifteen years.

April 12, 2020September 16, 2020

A prayer for these times

Last year I stumbled across the term “crafted prayer” in a refreshingly short and invaluable book by Graham Cooke, entitled the same. In it, Graham discusses the riches found in praying prayers that are not just found in the spur of the moment but rather prayers that are deliberately and carefully crafted before the throne of God. These are prayers that we can pray over and over again. And thus bringing a depth to our prayers that may, perhaps, be lacking otherwise.